Long Time Dead Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
Play It To Death
Dare To Play.
A group of British students enbark on summoning spirits on a Ouija board after a night of clubbing. But someone breaks the link before they have finished and now a demon is trapped in their world and the only way to banish it, is for all the people who summoned it to die.
| Alec Newman | |
| Joe Absolom | |
| Lara Belmont | |
| Melanie Gutteridge | |
| Lukas Haas | |
| James Hillier |
| Marcus Adams |
4.80 out of 10 (1951 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Jumping on the bandwagon.....
posted on 17 Jul 2009Way back in 1996 Master of the macabre Wes Craven had an idea, to re-invent the teenage horror slasher movie. It was an idea that gave the horror genre the new leash of life that it needed, although, as usual, Hollywood milked the concept. After 'Scream' set the critics raving and the audiences screaming, Hollywood came up with the theory that as Scream made one hell of a lot of money, they'll make more. Thus 'I Know What You Did Last Summer', 'Cherry Falls', 'Final Destination' & 'Valentine' (to name but a few) were born.After 7 years the British Film Industry must have thought, "Hang on, let's have a go at that". Unfortunately, they're trying to jump on a bandwagon that is not there anymore, hence making one big mess. Namely - 'Long Time Dead'.Now, I'm a strong supporter of British films, but this is just plain awful. Dire acting from all parties, the director (Marcus Adams; Also the writer) must have been asleep while the actors attempted to perform. The movie heavily relies on the: `boo...oh I scared you tactic', using a lot of non-digetic music weaving in with the digetic noise of the characters either running or aimlessly wondering before getting 'slaughtered'. Inverted commas because none of the killings actually go on on screen.Literally the plot is scraping the bottom of the barrel. It kind of has distant echo's of Cravens superior 'Wishmaster' and the appalling 'I Still Know ..'. A group of teens for some reason (quite possibly I missed the part where this was explained, but I doubt it) decided to have a go on a Ouija board, and accidentally call a Djinn. A Djinn ( for all the people who didn't see Wishmaster) is a demon. The term Djinn is what is commonly known as a genie. But ironically enough (as if you didn't see this twist coming), the Djinn is evil.For this 'Djinn' to be released it has to kill all those who conjured it. But really, do you even care? The characters are supposed to appeal to the audiences so we don't want them to die, yet we do.An extremely predictable film from start to finish, if you can't see these twists coming then there is something seriously wrong with you.Marks out of 10 - I'm not even gonna bother. I implore you, don't go and see this movie, don't waste your money.
Entertaining horror movie.
posted on 09 Jun 2009Two years ago when this first came out, I went to the cinema because I wanted to see what the demon would look like in this one. So while watching a couple of previews, it finally started and I wasn't expecting the music to be so academy award winning it made the movie perfect. After watching it, it wasn't that bad. Then yesterday, I gave it another watch and I still love it. You know why? It's pretty simple. The music, the direction and a couple of scenes which are very scary(not on video though). And I really like the way the demon looked at the end. The movie has a stylish pace that makes the movie so scary it's good. If you wanna see a movie so scary, so stylish and so dark, see this movie and see it alone. Overall, one of the better horror movies too be ever made. P.S. Great soundtrack. 9/10
Gives new meaning to the words 'Scary Movie'
posted on 30 May 2009Being a Catholic I was very apprehensive about seeing this film as it deals with the occult and Ouija boards. It has an on-the-edge-of your-seat feel. The young cast plays out amazingly well. English viewers will recognise Joe Absolom and Marsha Thompson. Lukas Haas adds to the international mix. If you've seen this and Thir13en Ghosts, you will know that this is the better of the two - That's my opinion anyway. This is simply an amazing film, you won't believe that it's a Brit-flick. It gives a new meaning to the words 'Scary Movie' A few words of advice if you see this at night, you won't wanna go to sleep for hours!!
Hire it but only if there's nothing better around
posted on 26 May 2009Only thing Long Time Dead in this is the acting. Lots of off-camera scares (i.e. small budget), nonsensical 'London' locations (?!?) and bumps and groans. I suspect the actors were actually as drugged up as their characters were meant to be.Well meaning but not slick enough to be a winner.
I don't know why this is getting slated
posted on 14 May 2009I thought this film was a really good thriller & didn't have any of the cliches these films often have, like screaming lovely American girls running round in circles.Spoilers:I was totally gripped from start to finish, so was everyone I went with and thought there was some good acting. Of course it had faults. The house was made out to be bigger than it was and like Fort Knox to get out of in one scene. The lack of Police presence & also, the ending, revealing that, in a sense nobody was responsible nor any reason for the deaths certainly lost it a mark.The real problem with this film was that it came out after a good genre like 'teen slasher' has been flogged to death. i thought it was better than anything of this exact topic. Unfortunately (& like the action films that try to copy Die Hard) we've really seen it all before. Shame though, as this was excellent. 8/10
Oh Dear!! Where was the storyline?
posted on 04 May 2009Once again, the team who put together the trailer for this movie did an excellent job. Shame the actual movie was a horror to watch in itself!! The story line needed a severe jump start to get it going, but basically a Djjin, being the main culprit, was brought into our world through a ouija board, and then kills it's victims throughout the film. Last time I came across one of these evil characters was "Wish Master" and that was far better than this movie. The only part of this film, which held it together, was the soundtrack. Not the banging dance music at the beginning but the standard orchestral accompany of stabbing blasts of music on an auto repeat, just letting us know something nasty was going to happen. Nothing new with this film. Very boring and a complete waste of time. I was more interested in the coke that was spilt on the floor next to me than another character thrashing around (very poorly I would like to add) whilst being killed on screen! Bless em!
Popcorn entertainment, nothing more or less
posted on 02 May 2009LONG TIME DEAD Aspect ratio: 1.85:1Sound format: Dolby DigitalDuring a Ouija session, several drunken teenagers summon a djinn which proceeds to kill them, one by one.Though clearly influenced by American horror movies, LONG TIME DEAD finds an echo in Michael Armstrong's UK thriller THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR (1969), in which bored teenagers inadvertently sparked the wrath of a deadly killer - in Armstrong's film, the villain was an all-too-human maniac, whereas Marcus Adams' updated version unleashes the forces of supernatural terror on its hapless protagonists. Alec Newman (from the TV remake of DUNE) is the unofficial leader of the group, whose father (Michael Feast) was involved in similar jiggery-pokery many years earlier, leading to several deaths witnessed by Newman as a child. The movie opened in UK theaters to scathing reviews and dismal box-office, and while the artless, multi-authored screenplay wanders aimlessly from scene to scene (the curse of so many modern horror films), it isn't nearly as bad as various reviews have suggested. Performances are uniformly fine (particularly Newman as the damaged young man forced to come to terms with his father's terrible legacy, and former soap star Joe Absolom as a potential victim), and Adams stages the various set-pieces with brisk precision, building to a fiery showdown between Newman and the unstoppable monster. The narrative makes little sense, but the movie is efficient and watchable, and amounts to passable popcorn entertainment, nothing more or less.
Its Will Scare Your Pants Off
posted on 16 Apr 2009I have watched 1000's of films and though this is at best an average movie for scare fans its a hit. Fair enough bad acting and a poor script doesn't help but i still found it scary. Why i dont know maybe its the whole ouija thing but i would recommend it for a good video night with the lights out.The end was quality !!!!!!
Board stiff
posted on 25 Feb 2009Note to film directors, try not to bring British actors across as dumb, sexually obsessed morons. Every actor in this movie comes across as an amateur that could be bettered by like-minded people in real life. It's quite a sight to see clubbers obsessed with sex in one scene and in the next experts in the supernatural and being able to hold a successful seance. The seance scene was embarrassing to watch as the camera pans their faces trying to get some sign of emotion out of them. It was just nothing, these guys can't act.Not only are the characters forgettable, the dialogue appears to have been written by those with very lacking vocabulary, particularly efficient in using expletives. With the amount of bad language even in the relaxed moments of the film, it just ruined the suspenseful moments. Whilst the writers may argue that it makes them more realistic, in a film it just becomes grating and since when did a horror movie have to be realistic? The characters say very little of intelligence, making you care less about them, influencing us to cheer on the demons to get rid of this pathetic bunch of generic teenage sleaze-bags. Avoid this film like the plague. 1.5/5
A poor over cooked Brit film. Wait till its on the TV
posted on 01 Feb 2009A poor film that is riddled with bad or well used plot points. The film reeks of an ego trip for a trumped up film studies student. The lame script and canon fodder cast cant make up the one thing this film lacks, a point. The film could of been so good, if it knew what it wanted to be, its neither indie enough to be a new shallow grave or bloody enough to be a true slasher. The gormlesscat with Hass and Absolom who make good work of such weak material. Maybe ive been spoiled with The Others and Hannibal and What lies beneath to name a few of the good solid scary films/slasher films also scream and the up coming mothman film all hold more scares and gore in their trailers then in the whole of Long Time Dead. Wait till your bored to insanity and its on TV.
Surprisingly good.
posted on 06 Jan 2009After watching such teen horror movies as Cherry Falls and I know what you did last summer, I expected this to be similar: Too gory, too boring and too badly acted.I was wrong.Long time dead, A film in which a group of friends decide to have a night out, making out, getting high and dancing in the process, release a djinn (arabian Fire demon) accidentally while using a Ouija board. Unfortunately for them The evil demon doesn't like the idea and pays them back by killing them one at a time......The film to me, seems much darker and more evil than "i Know what you did last summer" with scenes in places that would creep you out if you had your whole family with you, it doesn't help that they live in an old house with a "strange" landlord. This also brings a few faults into the film by more of them later.The plot is pretty good and the way the students get killed is impressive, while many parts of the film can be quite scary.Faults: Well the fact that they are always in scary places ruins the plot, I mean if someone's trying to kill you, would you go into dark rooms? Or go ANYWHERE alone? me nether....The other bad part of the film is that we quite often see the characters running away from the evil demon which does get a bit annoying after a while.All In all I think this film is very good, better than many I have seen.
It will definatly scare u
posted on 07 Dec 2008This film was...okay, Not one of the best films, i found some of the acting a bit off and shaky. It left me and my friends hiding behind our jackets, its very good for a scare, go and see it if u love horror flicks otherwise don't bother, it really will scare u! The whole concept will leave you really never wanting to play Ouija board EVER! I only give it 5 out of 10.
This thing rocks!
posted on 16 Oct 2008I have seen the movie on the Fantasy Filmfest in Stuttgart and it truly was one of the highlights of the festival. Chilling, thrilling, not a minute to take breath again and relax a little - the film takes you in its grip and never loosen it until the end. A must see for all fans!
Joe Absolom was good the film wasn't
posted on 12 Oct 2008(possible plot spoilers)for the most part this was a mediocre film but in places it was god damn awful, to be quite honest i didn't like any of the characters and so didn't care when they died or how they died because they got killed off in very boring ways! only the first death was anything near chilling and it completly went down hill from there the implausibility factor was just taken repeatedly up a bit too high for my liking I'm afarid! however in the midst of all the awfulness and especially at the films kinda shock ending, Joe Absolom was quite good. now it should be known i wasn't a fan of his from the Eastenders days but i think he was the only one that i cared about. in fact even tho in the end he is the evil one i was rooting for him purely for killing off all the others cos they annoyed me. having said that though the ending was a bit of a confusing one/implausible impossible to the frame of the film!! that i felt undid all of Absolom's sterling work and reminded me how irritating this film was - not the worst film i have ever seen but i did regret paying to see it.
Good British Horror flick
posted on 14 Sep 2008I enjoyed this film. I found the characters believable, who I felt were normal people as opposed to movie stars. The tension was kept up throughout the film. The plot was not especially original, but then they tend not to be in this genre. SPOILER: Did anyone else notice that when Annie goes back to where they did the Ouija board, the letters have been arranged to say "ALL DIE" on the wall, but surely there would just be one L?
Judge it by its own merits...
posted on 30 Jul 2008I can't help feeling that people are being too hard on this film. OK, I'll admit it: it so wants to be trendy, it screams low production values (about six film studios had to inject cash into it just to get a release), and it's basically a mess. But at least it's different...Most reviewers have compared it to Scream. Scream was a fine movie, even spawning some decent sequels and half-decent copies. But you just can't put Long Time Dead into the same subgenre. It isn't an ironic, trendy, sometimes-funny kind of film. Instead it's dark, menacing and - although silly in places - still manages to produce a few good moments. A comparison to Jeepers Creepers is much more fitting. Personally, I loved Jeepers: it signalled an end to the moribund Scream-type, which has been done to death, and instead returned to the roots of pure horror: trying to scare.Long Time Dead, while not as good as Jeepers Creepers, has a good stab at this too. Yes, sometimes the Djinn idea seems silly, and the ending definitely lets the rest of the film down - but on the whole it's rather good. I disagree with pathetically picky reviewers who comment on the acting and the production crew's abilities - at the end of the day, it's a Friday night movie intended to give a few jolts. Why do you expect every film you see to be up to the standard of the best?I also happen to disagree with people who comment on the lack of gore or explicit death scenes. I was surprised to realize, after I'd watched the film, that not one single death was shown on screen - when I was watching, I didn't notice this at all. Surely this is a sign of success. Besides, there was plenty of after-death gore, for those that look for that kind of thing. It's one of the bloodier movies of recent times. Perhaps this is down to differences between the theatrical and the DVD versions. I saw the latter.One point I will concede: like many others, I hated the characters. Personally I don't sympathize with people who take drugs, hang around all the time and seemingly don't have jobs. This made it a lot harder to feel for those who died (and there were a lot of deaths to sit through). There were a few exceptions to this: the characters of Liam, Annie and Webster, I quite liked. (Lukas Haas alone in the house with "it" was one of the best scenes in the film).To summarize: it's slightly clichéd but original in places; the acting is perfectly acceptable for a film of this type; and in my opinion it succeeds in producing some truly scary moments - and I have seen a lot of horror films.So don't listen to people who: (a) hype the movie so much that they think it's "the best horror in years" or: (b) dismiss it as extremely predictable and boring.Because they're all wrong. It's not brilliant, but it certainly isn't bad. And it's at least worth a rental fee.
Stylish Scary Horror
posted on 28 Jul 2008Very impressed by this modern stylish 'British' horror. The plot is not given away until the very end of the film. Quite gory in parts for those are squeamish, but that doesnt overpower the movie. This is more of a edge of the seat, heart in your mouth kind of film, solid debut for Marcus Adams and accomplished directing throughout. Watch it!!!
Filmmakers give up the ghost long before the cast
posted on 14 Jul 2008Long Time Dead is a terribly weak movie, where the director seems to have thrown up his hands in horror about a third of the way through.But whatever the failings of the production team, nothing could have done more to damage this film than the hatchet job performed in the editing suite. I have quite literally never seem a more poorly cut film from a major studio. In one scene, a character is thrown to the ground and is seen to pick himself up visibly unharmed. The next he is covered in blood and carrying a shard of broken glass. Large parts of the showdown in the warehouse have clearly been axed, and the nonsensical way the film jerks from one scene to another suggests that many other plot threads have been sacrificed.This is all the more surprising because some individual scenes work very well. Lukas Haas and Mel Raido's fateful trip to recover the video is brilliantly realised and absolutely terrifying. In fact, the whole cast waste top-notch performances on this train wreck of a movie, even when the dialog lets them down. I note that one reviewer states he saw an early cut in summer 2000. If it really did take Universal another 18 months to release the film, it gives some indication of what they themselves thought of it.
Underrated
posted on 31 May 2008I am surprised at the mixed views on this film. Reading the back cover I knew it was a gamble but it paid off.I watched it without any hype or recommendation, and thought it was a pretty good film.Someone rated it 2/10. Has this person seem some of the rubbish horror films in the video store.I thought the acting was very good. A welcome relief from some of the American garbage.7/10
Liked it
posted on 04 Aug 2009The last film I saw that was supposed to be scary (Jeepers Creepers) just wasn't at all.There's much more of an atmosphere to this one, and the fact that its British makes it even better - no American high school types in this!I guess if you read too much into it or over analyse it you can spoilit for yourself, but go see it and relax.Probably not a best of genre but a good film, with a IMHO good ending.