TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Filipe Neto This film begins in a rather uncharacteristic way: a young girl who is a screenwriter and is trying to recover from a destructive love relationship decides to isolate herself in an old and remote mansion in order to be able to finish a new script within the deadlines. However, the house hides a mystery surrounding the previous tenants who will tinker with her head. Okay, nothing new here. It's the usual light horror thriller, blending "haunted house" with "psychopathic killer coming to kill the girl", seasoned with "found footage" and served with such a lack of originality that it becomes very predictable and lacks any tension or suspense. How am I going to feel tense or stay tuned to the screen if I know what's going to happen? Things get better when the story of Lucy, the previous inhabitant, begins to develop, giving a dramatic and human touch to a story very empty until then. In a way, we are more able to care for Thora Birch's character than the main one, played by Brittany Murphy. Another problem is the tremendous slow pace, as if the director wanted to "fill the sausage" just to get a movie lasting more than an hour. Combine that with the predictability I've mentioned and you'll understand that it turns out to be boring most of the time. As for the cast, Brittany Murphy does not surprise me or show great interpretive ability (she was never close to being a great actress and the tabloid news about her death can be more interesting than her filmography), Birch complied with which was required of her, but didn't particularly shine. It's not worth talking about Marc Blucas, who played a papier-mâché villain.

GL84 After renting out a huge abandoned house to work on a screenplay, a writer finds the ghostly hauntings around her might be the result of a grisly murder and begins to investigate the few pieces of evidence left with her to help solve the reasoning behind the activities.This here is an incredibly middling effort, hindered mostly be the fact that it's just so clichéd and familiar that hardly anything here is of any real surprise. It seems to also ramble on without doing anything of any real interest due to the fact that the majority of the film, and that's not a misnomer, nearly ninety-percent of what happens here, is viewed through the video-camera remnants left at the location with just about the rest of the time taken up with her mumbling incoherently as she rambles about the house supposedly terrified of the hauntings going on that really aren't all that terrifying or creepy. In short, this one is a rather bland and dull mess.Rated R: Language and Violence.

movieman_kev Brittany Murphy is Alice, a writer in her early 30's who moves into a spooky old Victorian mansion in order to be alone to work on her book as well as distance herself from a traumatic nervous breakdown. But no sooner is Alice settling in, that the house is getting the worst of her imagination courtesy of strange noises and nightmares. Now Alice, already in a fragile mental state, must deal with that as well as an ex who recently got out of prison.I found myself enjoying this film much more than I thought that I would've, thanks in no small part to a nice atmospheric soundtrack as well as a surprisingly adequate subdued performance by Murphy. All of this is almost (but not quite) enough to make up for a pretty clichéd and heavily predictable storyline. The late Britt does the most with what little she's given.My Grade: C

moonspinner55 It's 'Dead', all right... Brittany Murphy, so good in early supporting roles, was never capable of headlining a movie on her own, especially one so obvious as "Deadline". Fragile young woman, on the run from her abusive ex, takes refuge in a rambling Victorian house beset with creaking doors and dripping faucets--oh yes, and a ghost as well. Capably-produced thriller is woefully under-populated and embarrassingly derivative, a Julia Roberts/Kate Hudson cast-off. Murphy is so enervated, she barely reacts to wet footprints in a house where she's living by herself. Technical elements and Carlos José Alvarez's ominous scoring outshines the writing from Sean McConville (who also produced and directed). McConville is the perfect example of someone who was raised on tatty B-movies and screamers--he has no other inspiration to draw from. * from ****