Sadly Over-hyped

Powerful

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

To be honest, I expected to see a rather low production with lots of gore. What I found was a surprisingly funny movie about a young man. Whether they planned it this way or not, many situations or dialogues made me laugh. Even some of their appearances. So many people with huge noses.But let's get back to the story. The young man notices some strange behavior around him. Weird looking old women, apparently drugged or drunken nymphomaniacs and kids torturing some insects or the likes to death. This is a good part, because it made me wonder if this is due to the comet approaching or just the "usual" madness in the world.The funny part kept about 35 minutes and I really enjoyed it. Then the movie started showing a bit of gore (enough to worry me and let me check the remaining playtime xD) but that didn't last long. After the world starts going to hell he meets that cool guy who explains him that they will go out and kill everyone they see, even women and children, without checking how much of their humanity has left. His whole behavior reminded me of Vin Diesel. Sadly he gets infected and has to stay behind.Granted, the movie has some logical issues. Because the nerd from the beginning, who couldn't protect himself starts going all Rambo on the infected. Though I feel sorry for the spider lady. While it's most likely that she would have turned into some kind of black widow, she didn't mean any harm until he killed her...The ending is confusing. It looks like the young man preserved his humanity after all, even though his body mutated. He saves her and offers her a hand while the rest of the world is turning into a hell on earth. Aaanyway, to sum it up: it was good entertainment for most of the parts, so it's a 7/10 from me.It's just too short. With a bit more time for character development or some more story it would have been great.

Scream Factory is branching out in a very big and positive way. Once known as the king of horror movie re-issues, they're starting to grab up some fine new material and broaden their horizons. If you count the Chiller Original Movies, then you know they've been heading this way for a while now. French sci-fi/ horror gem "Dead Shadows" can now be added to the list. Imagine "Night of the Comet" blended together with "The Thing" and you get an idea of what to expect from this creepy little flick.Chris has been a recluse ever since seeing his parents die eleven years earlier on the eve of Halley's Comet's fly-over of the Earth. Deathly afraid of the dark, he keeps to himself and doesn't leave his flat very often. He decides to break his own rules to celebrate the appearance of another comet at a party with his beautiful neighbor. As the comet passes by our planet, the people around him become increasingly violent. He soon discovers there's more behind their erratic behavior than just a gravitational change or ingesting too much alcohol."Dead Shadows" is considered to be not rated. If put before the MPAA, it would easily earn an R rating. There are plenty of gory and disturbing sequences of violence and alien transformations. I found myself even cringing at some points. The movie contains some sexual content, nudity, and language as well."Dead Shadows" is one of those great "straight-and-to-the-point" movies. It doesn't take thirty minutes of your valuable time gearing up and going through the motions. It establishes characters quickly and gets to the meat, potatoes, and gore. The movie is such a thrill-ride that when the credits roll you're left begging for more. That's how you know you've just seen something unique and different. How often are you left feeling like that these days?

David Cholewa's Dead Shadows was one of the few French fantastic films that we saw last year and I would say that the only one that could be included in the French New Wave of gore which is invading the theaters since almost a decade. Despite its exiguous budget, noticeable during lots of moments, horror fans can be more than satisfied since the movie satisfy all the expectations we look for in this kind of productions. The plot line is simple, a meteor falls into Paris, inside of it there are some strange creatures who already visited our planet in the past, their return provoke a mutation on the habitants of the city. Before anything, we have to point out that the movie is a love letter to John Carpenter, we can find in it all kind of homage to his work, since They live climax, to Michael Myers' mask, going all trough to In the mouth of madness, Big trouble in little China, the Plisken saga, Prince of darkness or The thing. The screenplay also drinks form H. P. Lovecraft's short stories The shadow out of time and The colour out of space; even the classic anime Urotsukidôji is referenced here. With this references in mind it is clear that we are in front of a movie of apocalyptic tone. The director and the writer (Vincent Julé) introduce the characters in their day by day life and here the lack of budget is an advantage since they can't spend too much time with domestic sub plots going to the point without too much delays. So when the invasion and the corresponding possessions start we are familiar enough with the characters and the movie walks to a dark and somber climax. The movie is generous with gore and the makeup effects are excellent, the CGI goes from very good to just passable, the budget again, I suppose. The same thing goes for the cinematography, the work in interiors is more than notable but the exteriors are good in some moments and limited in others, in any case it makes a good use of the locations. On the other hand the actors are very good, the star Wolfrom Fabian and his partenaire Blandine Marmigère are very convincing as the helpless hero and his romantic interest, specially Mrs. Marmigère. Fabian works the sad and menacing register very well but he is not as good when playing a regular guy. It is also remarkable the intervention of Rurik Sallé and usual suspect of French horror films. But the actor who owns the show and steals all the scenes he is in is cult actor John Fallon, here playing a character that fits him like a glove. It is a shame he has not enough screen time. And here is the main problem of the film. If until now I have been saying the movie knows how to work in its favor the lack of budget at the end it becomes a problem . The short running time, barely 70 minutes, makes you think that they were short of money and they only shot the main scenes and the main plot of the movie, because things like Fallon's character and the subplot explaining the origin of the infection and the evolution of the main character are very diffuse, you can only know what happened there by intuition, and at the end of the film we have the feeling that the movie could have been much more and has ended in something of a try. It's a pity since its closed ending doesn't leave a open door for a sequel, but who knows. In any case a pretty good entertaining picture that it is worth the time.

Regarding an alien invasion of France, this film is utterly dire. It has a wimpish protagonist who every chick in the film seems to have the hots for and every female character in it is either shallow, vapid or both. It gives no real explanation or backstory, but simply belts along, yet manages to be utterly devoid of tension or suspense and has stupid plot holes. Even at 70 odd minutes it still feels too long and is basically a sequence of weird occurrences and mediocre fight scenes. Also, the CGI sucks.I don't even really have the heart to go into any more detail except to say that it's a total turkey and didn't go down well at all with the audience at the Edinburgh Dead by Dawn festival where I caught it.2/10, a boring annoying film that doesn't seem to have a clue about what it actually wishes to say and a film to be avoided. Truly dreadful.