Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

DigitalRevenantX7 CAUTION: Plot spoilers present.Esteemed young documentary filmmaker Teri Brewer finds out on her mother's deathbed that she was adopted & that she had a slightly older brother who was placed into a mental asylum following the brutal but unsolved murder of their parents when they were infants. Tracking down the brother (named Alex), Teri & her boyfriend find themselves in danger when a malevolent spirit that had been residing in a video game that Alex had been playing at the time of the deaths comes out & uses Alex's body has a host in order to kill again.The Dread answers the question of whatever happened to female THE EVIL DEAD star Ellen Sandweiss – she's still stuck doing ultra-cheap horror schlock twenty years after her breakthrough role. But unlike The Evil Dead, which was gleefully inventive & darkly funny, The Dread is neither of those things.The main problem I had with the film was the central concept of a malevolent entity residing in a video game – as a dedicated video game player, I find any attempt by the conservative types out there to blame videogames as violent garbage that warps minds as nothing but unfounded rubbish (these same types also decry genre films as violent & bad for children but think nothing about allowing young people access to firearms – this kind of hypocrisy is what gets me really fired up in anger). The story is filled with stupid plot devices that make it look really bad in the eyes of genre fans – security is tight in the soon-to-be-closed asylum but a pair of horny teens manage to sneak in using a long forgotten service door that nobody in the asylum's staff even bothers to remember to use when the crap hits the fan. Some of the characters have been poorly written – Sandweiss' character walks around always holding a pencil (& sure enough gets impaled with all of her pencils in one of the film's more entertaining deaths], while some of the 'crazies' running around are age-old clichés.The film does manage to compensate slightly by having a reasonably gory third act but the climax fails to coherently explain the nature of the entity – the early parts of the film make a vague claim that the creature is living inside the video game that the child was playing, but later on the creature seems to be born inside the host & can jump to a sibling when the host dies. Nothing is explained satisfactorily enough to carry the film along, leaving the film to collapse like a house of cards.

hocfocprod I'm not going to go over the plot much because others have explained what there is of one pretty well. The movie has a lot of dead ends and leaves a lot of things unexplained. These, I feel, were the biggest weaknesses besides the attempt at creating atmosphere with a lack of lighting. Some scenes were spot on in their look, but many were muddy and lacked any detail at all.A mediocre monster, general gore and acting that was a bit below pro-level all give away the movie's low budget roots. I feel all of these are forgivable though when you consider the short amount of time they apparently had to shoot and the small amount of money. While I'm sure there are many filmmakers who could have done more with $150,000 on a video production budget, I can see how it bogs things down.Where budget shouldn't be a factor is the screenplay itself. Most of the time I wasn't quite sure what the hell was going on and by the end I just didn't care. There was something about a video game and a monster and a crazy kid who was now an adult. How the monster worked, what his particular powers were or how he chose his victims wasn't important I guess.So, if you're watching a movie tonight to be scared witless, see Oscar winning performances by actors who had time to connect with their characters, grade-A special F/X or a deep story with rich, full characters, give this one a pass. But, if you like to see monsters dismember people you can fast forward to the fun parts.

Paul Andrews The Dread starts on the 12th October, 1986 as Mr & Mrs Brewer are found brutally murdered in their own house... Jump forward fifteen years & Teri Edwards (Sally Pressman) is told by her step-mom that she is adopted, wanting to find out about her own family Teri does some investigation & discovers that she was born Teri Brewer, her parents were murdered, she was adopted & the brother she never knew she had has been in a psychiatric institution for the past fifteen years after being accused of their parents murder. Teri decides to visit her brother Alex (J. Steadman) but it seems that Alex hasn't spoken all the time he has been incarcerated. As Teri visits brutal murders begin to happen...Edited, co-written & directed by Michael Spence one has to say that The Dread is terrible & it's as simple & straight forward as that. Amazingly three people are credited with the script, Spence, Casey Conlon & Karen C. O'Malley which quite frankly stuns me as I can't believe it takes three people to write something so simple, so predictable & just so downright rubbish as The Dread. I pretty much hate most modern low budget shot on a camcorder type horror & have very little good to say about it & a film such as The Dread merely reinforces why I dislike this sort of generic crap. There's no sort of coherent story, nothing is explained, the significance of the computer game isn't explained, why Alex turns into a monster isn't explained, why he doesn't speak for fifteen years isn't explained, why the murders just suddenly start up again isn't explained, why after a murder the local cops only send out two detectives isn't explained, why everyone insists on splitting up all the time isn't explained, why no-one thinks to just leave the place until five minutes before the end isn't explained, why Teri doesn't remember being adopted or her parents being murdered is never explained & how two teenagers can hide behind a wheelchair as an orderly walks past without being noticed isn't explained & quite frankly just lazy. The character's are awful, why would two teenagers want to break into a mental institution for fun for instance? The dialogue is awful, there's far too much running around in corridors doing nothing in particular & no-one ever does anything logical.Director Spense doesn't do much to improve the script, obviously working on a low budget The Dread is still a poor looking film. At least the filmmakers attempt to try & include some gore, it's not very good but there's a decapitated head, some splashed blood, a couple of mutilated bodies, someone is shot, someones heart is ripped out & that's about it. Also you cannot climb up the inside of a vertical ventilation shaft like they do, I don't care what anyone says. I mean they don't even hold on to anything, they just sort of push themselves up which is impossible. The monster isn't seen until the end & even then it doesn't look that great. The Dread certainly isn't scary & why are there no lights in this mental institution? Don't give me all that rubbish about the electricity being cut off either, I mean there's still enough electricity for Alex to play his computer game isn't there? The whole opening sequence is a rip-off of Halloween (1978) as a young boy kills members of his family, unfortunately that's where the comparison ends as The Dread is so cheap looking & lacking in any suspense or atmosphere.With a supposed budget of about $875,000 The Dread was low budget & it looks it too, there's not much else to say other than it looks cheap & nasty. According to the IMDb The Dread was filmed between 17th October & 5th November 2005 in Michigan although remained unreleased until 2007. The acting isn't great, horror fans should recognise Ellen Sandweiss as Cheryl from the classic The Evil Dead (1981) & she has aged very well & looks very similar to she did back then.The Dread is pretty dreadful, I know it's a cheap one-liner but it's perfectly apt & appropriate when used in conjunction with The Dread. Basically The Dread is terrible & a total mess of a film.

cartza The concept seems simple but interesting. A asylum stricken young man Alex seems to be able to transform into a maniacal vicious creature with the ability of becoming non corporeal. He is in the asylum due to becoming non responsive after the brutal murder of his parents, something which his monstrous alter ego could be responsible for. The creature has laid dormant for years until a doctor revives old memories for Alex. The killings become more violent when his biological sister Teri comes for a visit(she was adopted after the parents were murdered).This film starts out okay (i'm talking the first couple of minutes), but quickly suffers a downward spiral. If this were a student film for a school project, it would rate well. But it isn't, so it doesn't. Obviously this film had bugger all budget, but i have seen better films on a shoe string budget. Supporting actors seem to be people giving it there best shot, but most of them don't make the grade. The music score is b grade but acceptably so. Includes some horror clichés, like horny teenagers breaking into the asylum for a cheap scare. Word of advise, if you take your date into an asylum and she strips saying she's always wanted to have sex in one, she is most likely nuts herself so i'd steer clear.The point of view shot coming up behind the main character to try and trick the viewer into thinking the killer is behind them. Usually filmmakers do this shot after the killer is loose, not before. The creature is poor and is quite obviously a guy in a costume. If the mouth moved when it talked, it might redeem it a little. But it didn't, so it doesn't. There is some blood and guts for gore hounds, but not great views of it as it will become obvious that they are animal parts from the butcher shop or corn syrup mixed with red food dye. Best performances go to the lead detective played by Marvin Bernard and asylum ward caretaker Sid Ellis. The asylum manager played by Ellen Sandweiss completely overacts and would have expected more from someone who seems to have the most acting experience in the whole movie (she was in the first Evil Dead). Alex's sister played by Sally Pressman is adequate.