If you thought the granddaddy Slashers of yesteryear were brutal, you haven’t seen Dead of Night! With the feel of true crime killing sprees and new-age Slasher motifs, Level 33 Entertainment brings us a festival of blood that will keep you guessing who the killer is… and why they’re stalking this perfect neighborhood.
A small town is terrorized by a series of brutal murders, as a determined sheriff, his daughter, and a desperate mayor race to uncover the truth behind the killings before the town descends into chaos.
Dead of Night, IMDB
We start off with a plot point that us horror fans have cemented into our brains: girl walks home alone after a job and is chased and killed. Gutted like a fish even, and left to rot for all to see the next day. Of course, the police are on it, but their lack of leads only ends up in more bodies, more motive, and more mayhem. People are being stalked and killed in their own homes, and no one is safe from the murders — or others’ accusations. When the kills finally get too close for comfort, Kelly (Kirrilee Berger) takes after her Sherriff father and decides that she can solve this mystery or die trying. Lots of pearl clutching going on here. Pearls… and pools of blood.
Knowing that the fear felt from these characters was partly inspired by the real-life Night Stalker murders makes Dead of Night‘s kill scenes all the more chilling. The first kill really sets the stage with relentless stabbing, even after the victim is likely already dead. And with the exception of a second-half killing extravaganza (probably the most accurate phrase to call that sequence), all of the kills feel drawn out and downright malicious. Dead of Night didn’t shy away from gore in any way, showing stabs, cuts, breaks, and strings of intestines in all their glory. If you thought you could close your eyes to escape the carnage, the sound design will prove you wrong. Every squish. Every squelch. Every last breath.
While Slashers generally are close to the top of my favorites in horror, they aren’t the very top. I think this is because the storylines often get lost in the sauce… er, blood. It makes sense, considering Slashers show off the slashing, rather than focus on a brain-heavy activity like critical thinking. That’s not to say that Dead of Night is for dummies; I just found the story a bit convoluted with characters going to extremes unnecessarily. Either they were wronged and decided to take everyone down for revenge, or they were so empowered by the act of justice that they would stop at nothing and consider no one else in their search for glory. I get it, I really do. I just prefer to watch the bloody bits and have fun with it, rather than rationalize a killer’s monologue.
Now you may ask: Celia, how does an ultra graphic Slasher like Dead of Night make any kind of impact on society? To that, I say to just look at the economic status of the people involved, plus the motive and retaliation that caused the murders in the first place. There is an obvious shout out to people of massive wealth and power being corrupt. When those perceived as “under” them get pushed to the brink, bad stuff happens. Change happens. Whether that change is good or not is up to discussion, but Dead of Night definitely calls on those tropes. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind — but in this case, it just destroys a community of well-to-do families.
Dead of Night was fast-paced with no room to breathe — and that’s a great thing! There were no slow spots, and even though the story felt clunky towards the end, the road there was full of twists and turns that kept me guessing. A wild ride watching at home, this is something I’d pay to see again on the big screen. Take your friends, you’re in for a crazy night!
Dead of Night is releasing theatrically at AMC Theaters in the US and Canada on November 13th. For more on Dead of Night, visit it on web and Instagram.
Want more? Watch my exclusive interview with writer/director Derek Sulek and executive producer Chris Jericho on YouTube!
