DEAD END - AKA 'Hard Shoulder'. Now that Halloween is on its way and Poundland is bulking out with mediocre horror drivel to palm off on the mostly disinterested masses who must buy something BECAUSE IT'S A POUND, I thought I'd make a start on trawling through the very likely 'mixed bag' I purchased today, if only so that fellow Cult Labsters don't necessarily have to do the same. So 'Dead End' - well, it's pretty rubbish really, although I thought it was kind of neat how those responsible for it chose a title which could double as an epitaph. "But wait Frankie, aren't you meant to be into, like, dead rubbish films or something?" Yes I am, and, with this in mind, I have to admit that I rather liked 'Dead End'. It's the lamentable tale of a middle class Brit family waylaid by some awful UK sinister fairground hillbilly types (a criminally marginalised demographic) who, yeah, are obviously brutal torturers. Some predictable stuff happens in a room, then someone escapes and there's a twist ending. It could've all been a load of sub-mediocrity, and to an extent it is but... there's a level of nastiness and ridiculousness which saves it in my eyes. There's some dad-daughter sleaze, a horrible David Mitchellesque creep who gets brutally beaten before his head's rammed down a really shitty looking toilet, fun with spittle, a dodgy rape scene in The Room (which turns out to be 'a room'), sudden shifts into ludicrous CGI surrealism, and a stupidly predictable but nihilistic ending. And some of the acting... the lead guy, or the director, can't do big emotion - "I WANT TO BE THE LEADER! I WANT TO BE THE LEADER!" Many other instances too. I'm warming even more to its image in my memory - the reality of watching it may be rather more lukewarm, but, being the sunny optimist I am, I only remember the good bits. And maybe it's worth £1.
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