Dead Night DVD Review

3 stars of creepy supernatural cabin-in-the-woods horror.

Dead Night is written by Irving Walker and Bradford Baruh (John Dies At the End) and is the directorial debut of producer Bradford Baruh.

James Pollack (A.J. Bowen – You’re Next, A Horrible Way to Die) and his wife Casey (Brea Grant – Best Friends Forever, A Ghost Story) have decided to enjoy a weekend getaway at a cabin in the mountains owned by their friend Mika (Joy Osmanski – Santa Clarita Diet).

With them they have their two children, Jessica (Sophie Dalah – Satanic, Unbroken) and Jason (Joshua Hoffman – Talia In The Kitchen) and Jessica’s best friend Becky (Elise Luthman – Party Mom, Family Vanished).

The cabin is built on a special kind of rock, which is reputed to produce healing energies, just what is needed as James is suffering from cancer.

The cabin seems very nice and they begin to settle in, but things start to go wrong when James goes out for firewood and finds a woman passed out in the snow. He takes her back to the cabin and they manage to resuscitate her but her behaviour is very odd and they soon decide they want her out.

She is Leslie Bison (Barbara Crampton – Re-Animator, Beyond the Gates) and her presence will trigger a chain of events which will change the lives of all concerned forever.

Dead Night is an enjoyable watch. The acting performances are good and although it is obviously low budget, the special effects do what they should do and it is quite gory in places. There are also some clever plot devices, as we see the story from two completely different angles.

It does have issues however, there is rather a lot going on storyline wise and the whole thing gets increasingly confused as the film progresses. They don’t seem able to decide whether it is a hack and slash, or supernatural horror and you do finish watching with no more idea of what’s going on than when you started.

All in all though, well worth a watch if you’re a fan of the horror genre.

“Don’t overthink it. There are places like this all over the world. It’s totally normal.”

Dead Night is available to buy now on DVD and Digital Download.