Though at times quite tense, Deadfall unfortunately never gets it's act together enough to be a good B-Horror. It's main problem is how totally derivative it is. It's almost blow for blow identical in terms of plot to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead, but has none of that films style or bowel-shaking shocks. I hate this theory that seems prevalent in the Horror genre that 'dur-hey, that's doing well, if we try to make the same film people'll love us'. It doesn't quite work like that guys.
Just because you have a small budget doesn't mean you have to spend a small amount of time on the film. The whole of Deadfall gives you the disturbing feeling that most of the movie is taken from the first take of every scene. The acting sucks, the effects are non-existent and the storyline as I previously noted is so derivative that it's almost insulting.
The most aggravating thing about Deadfall is this though. If a little more time was spent on it, or a little less time was spent watching the actors looking terrified then it would probably have been a cool little B-feature. I've watched a lot of low-budget movies, and hey, none of them are exactly Casablanca, but movies like Dead and Dying, 7 Mummies and Curse of the Forty-Niner make sure that the film is still exciting and imaginative despite it's obvious limitations. Deadfall has a serious imagination deficit going on, and given that this is a 15, the major splatter of Evil Dead is the only thing they didn't rip off, and to be honest a bit of comedy gore would have gone a long way to improving matters.
I'm a big fan of low-budget B-Movie horror, and I think the genre has a lot of great movies to offer viewers, but Deadfall is not one of them. Hopefully sooner or later everyone will be wise to cheap rip-offs like this and they'll become harder to market. Unfortunately I don't see that time coming soon.
Just because you have a small budget doesn't mean you have to spend a small amount of time on the film. The whole of Deadfall gives you the disturbing feeling that most of the movie is taken from the first take of every scene. The acting sucks, the effects are non-existent and the storyline as I previously noted is so derivative that it's almost insulting.
The most aggravating thing about Deadfall is this though. If a little more time was spent on it, or a little less time was spent watching the actors looking terrified then it would probably have been a cool little B-feature. I've watched a lot of low-budget movies, and hey, none of them are exactly Casablanca, but movies like Dead and Dying, 7 Mummies and Curse of the Forty-Niner make sure that the film is still exciting and imaginative despite it's obvious limitations. Deadfall has a serious imagination deficit going on, and given that this is a 15, the major splatter of Evil Dead is the only thing they didn't rip off, and to be honest a bit of comedy gore would have gone a long way to improving matters.
I'm a big fan of low-budget B-Movie horror, and I think the genre has a lot of great movies to offer viewers, but Deadfall is not one of them. Hopefully sooner or later everyone will be wise to cheap rip-offs like this and they'll become harder to market. Unfortunately I don't see that time coming soon.