Never Play with the Dead starts as six friends pitch up outside a large rundown abandoned house, Craig (Mark Homer) is organising a rave that he hopes will make bags of money, joining him is Lux the DJ, Lee the electrician, Graham (Terence Corrigan) the tea boy along with Melanie (Sarah Annison) & Sarah (Louisa Millwood-Haigh) the dancers plus sexy babe Victoria (Kara Tointon). They begin to set things up in preparation of the opening but strange things start to happen, the house seems to develop a life of it's own & psychically changes while Sarah gets spooked when she thinks she sees a ghostly child...
This British production was directed by Ray Kilby & for some reason I can't fully put my finger on I quite liked Never Play with the Dead. The script by David Fedash just has something going for it, the teenage character's are far better than those usually seen in these low budget teen horrors & the dialogue seems natural, no-one does anything moronically stupid & within the context of it's own story it's pleasingly restrained & plausible. I think the pacing is a problem, it's a touch too slow which sort of kills it as nothing really that significant happens & the whole of the first 80 odd minutes ends up feeling like one long drawn out build up to the admittedly good twist ending although I have to say as a seasoned horror veteran I actually guessed the twist before it was revealed but it still had decent impact & was surprisingly sad. Some of the storytelling isn't the best in particular it is never revealed why the place is haunted, why the house can change it's size & shape or what happened to the four children during that opening sequence which bugged me actually. As a 90 minute film maybe there's not quite enough here to turn Never Play with the Dead from a good horror film into a great one but what the hell I liked it all the same although I doubt I'd want to watch it again anytime soon.
Director Kilby does OK, obviously working on a low budget & shooting on video rather than film Never Play with the Dead has a certain spooky atmosphere & there are a couple of very effective scenes which prove you don't need horrible looking CGI computer effects to get under people's skin. This one goes for tension, strong storytelling & a careful build up rather than in your face scares or violence of which there isn't any.
Techncially the film is fine & you get the impression the filmmakers actually cared about the finished product which cannot be said of all low budget horror films from the past few years. The acting is pretty good from a largely unknown cast although many British viewers will probably recognise Mark Homer who appeared in 264 episodes over a number of years of Eastenders as gay-boy Tony Hills while both Mohammed George & the sexy Kara Tointon have gone the opposite way since making Never Play with the Dead having both joined the cast of Eastenders in prominent roles...
Never Play with the Dead isn't perfect but there's just something here which I liked & sometimes the heart just overrules the head.
This British production was directed by Ray Kilby & for some reason I can't fully put my finger on I quite liked Never Play with the Dead. The script by David Fedash just has something going for it, the teenage character's are far better than those usually seen in these low budget teen horrors & the dialogue seems natural, no-one does anything moronically stupid & within the context of it's own story it's pleasingly restrained & plausible. I think the pacing is a problem, it's a touch too slow which sort of kills it as nothing really that significant happens & the whole of the first 80 odd minutes ends up feeling like one long drawn out build up to the admittedly good twist ending although I have to say as a seasoned horror veteran I actually guessed the twist before it was revealed but it still had decent impact & was surprisingly sad. Some of the storytelling isn't the best in particular it is never revealed why the place is haunted, why the house can change it's size & shape or what happened to the four children during that opening sequence which bugged me actually. As a 90 minute film maybe there's not quite enough here to turn Never Play with the Dead from a good horror film into a great one but what the hell I liked it all the same although I doubt I'd want to watch it again anytime soon.
Director Kilby does OK, obviously working on a low budget & shooting on video rather than film Never Play with the Dead has a certain spooky atmosphere & there are a couple of very effective scenes which prove you don't need horrible looking CGI computer effects to get under people's skin. This one goes for tension, strong storytelling & a careful build up rather than in your face scares or violence of which there isn't any.
Techncially the film is fine & you get the impression the filmmakers actually cared about the finished product which cannot be said of all low budget horror films from the past few years. The acting is pretty good from a largely unknown cast although many British viewers will probably recognise Mark Homer who appeared in 264 episodes over a number of years of Eastenders as gay-boy Tony Hills while both Mohammed George & the sexy Kara Tointon have gone the opposite way since making Never Play with the Dead having both joined the cast of Eastenders in prominent roles...
Never Play with the Dead isn't perfect but there's just something here which I liked & sometimes the heart just overrules the head.