Spooky season draws near and with it comes the thrills and chills of everything horror. To open my Halloween-related film viewing for the year, I picked a small-budgeted flick titled The Dead Place. And I’m glad I did. Mostly.
Written and directed by Michael Pickle (Stab Awake 2010), The Dead Place immediately gives a strong nod to M. Night Shyamalan’s massive blockbuster blowout of ‘99 The Sixth Sense (Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment). Tackling themes of bullying, grief, torment, and metal health, this strong story follows a student named Isaac (Idris Veliu) who weathers the storms of day-to-day high school life. All while seeing dead people, dodging his parent’s concerns, and side-stepping a trip to the psychiatric hospital.
As Isaac’s paranormal-obsessed friend Katharine (Lexi Graves: Blood Dried Hands 2024) attempts to help him, his psychological torture worsens with the appearance of something different and much more malevolent than the ghosts that haunt his waking hours. This evil force known simply as “The New Kid” portrayed by David Howard Thornton, best known as Art the Clown from the Terrifier franchise, assists a disembodied entity only Isaac can hear. This entity, voiced by award-winning actor Bill Oberst Jr., pushes the troubled high schooler closer and closer to the edge of madness.
In all honesty, The Dead Place is a little rough to start, some performances landing flat, and some dialogue that just fell short of feeling authentic. The execution is a bit shaky and there are moments that just seemed to linger too long and feel completely unnecessary. However, I will say the lines and scenes that do land pack some punches. As the film escalates, so does the harshness and the brutality.
Props also goes to the special fx team. The type of practical effects favored by old-school horror fans, such as myself, are mostly well done to bring out the trauma in the dead showing whatever gruesome end befell them—much like Shyamalan’s aforementioned film. Just on a much smaller budget. There’s a little use of CGI, and frankly I feel the film would’ve been better without it. But thankfully it’s used sparingly and it’s nothing that ruins the flick. While it’s a little glaring and off-putting, it isn’t so gaudy that it takes away from the parts of this film that I really did enjoy.
While some performances hold the film back, there are some that picked up the slack. For his first feature-length role, Veliu shows some promise as he takes on a character arc that goes from heavy to crazy. Angel Nichole Bradford, a face who’s no stranger to the indie horror scene, owns her role as the carnage-craving girlfriend of the bully ring-leader James (Nick Theurer), and Theurer holds his own as Isaac’s social tormentor. However, the top-billed name who I’m sure catches most people’s eye is David Howard Thornton, and by now it’s what you’re most curious about if you’re a big enough horror fan. The best way to put it? If you ever wanted to know what Art the Clown would be like if you wiped away the makeup, took away the blood-drenched clown suit, and he were given lines rather than people to brutally stab or dismember, this is one performance you’ll want to see.
Performances aside, the most commendable aspect of The Dead Place, and what makes it worth a watch, are the subtle nods to classics and cult classics alike. They’re woven into a mostly compelling story that manages to hold some originality. Thorton’s twisted character comes off like a Charles Lee Ray selling his soul to stick around after death so he can torture high-school students like Freddy Krueger and Pennywise on a micro-budget, and Isaac’s psychological slip feels like a warped reminiscence of Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal, 2001).
Between my break from writing film reviews and this film’s release last June, The Dead Place almost flew right under my radar. Sure, it has its issues, and it’s definitely a shoe-string production. It’s nothing I’d go out of my way to see again, but I’m glad I gave it a single watch. If you’re a diehard horror fan who appreciates cult classics and indie films, this one is worth checking out at least once.
The Dead Place now available on Amazon Prime.
