Dead and Beautiful Review

3 star stylish but slow vampire thriller.

Dead and Beautiful is a classy but slightly long drawn out Shudder Original film available to stream from 4th November exclusively on Shudder.com. It is written and directed by David Verbeek (Full Contact, Club Zeus).

“I found him on Instagram. He was supposed to do some ritual. I don’t know. I didn’t kill anybody.”

Dead and Beautiful tells us the story of a group of five young Asian billionaires.  With nothing to fill their days they have created a tradition, they each take it in turns to find them something new and exciting to do. Running out of ideas, they are all growing a little bored, resorting to pranks and starting fights. Bin-Ray (Philip Juan) bursts out of a cake at his own funeral and Lulu (Aviis Zhong – Territory of Love) and Mason (Gijs Blom – The Forgotten Battle) find themselves riding public transport just to try to understand the “normal people”.

That all changes however when it is the turn of Ana (Anna Marchenko), who leads the group on an excursion into the forest. Here, they are greeted by a Shaman who leads them in some sort of ritual involving blood. They all pass out and when they awaken something has changed, they all have fangs, are they vampire teeth? There is also a dead body with bite marks, the implications are horrifyingly clear.

Alex (Yen Tsao – The Last Thieves) calls up a helicopter and they head off to a place in the city owned by his family where they can be alone. They begin to explore their new condition, experimenting with blood and new found vigour. They all deal with it differently, some enjoying the idea a little too much and it soon begins to drive a wedge between them.

Dead and Beautiful is a good idea for a vampire thriller, and the way it’s filmed is very nice, brooding and atmospheric. The acting is good and the characters believable and this is partly it’s downfall. It’s a victim of it’s own success in that the characters are so unlikeable that it is almost impossible to care what happens to them.

It’s also very slow moving, and although there are some excellent twists, some of it just doesn’t make sense. It does ultimately get across it’s message, that the rich are vampires, albeit a little apologetically.

An interesting film, and well worth a watch.

“Are you seriously suggesting we’re gonna burn up in the sunlight?… Guys, we’re not in a movie.”

Dead and Beautiful is available to stream now on Shudder.com