Horrid Horror Movie Review: Dread

You know, sometimes, I can imagine how people come up with a plan to make movies based on Clive Barker's ideas. They'd read his books, and think, "This would look awesome on the big screen!" Sometimes, it works fantastically. Other times, it works without the audience knowing it's Clive Barker, but is still awesome. There are times where the movie looks bad, but turns out surprisingly good. And there are movies that are just plain bad, that should make Barker, himself cry when he sees them. This, my loyal readers, is none of them. This is a movie that honestly had a good build up, only to shift gears to "What the flying fuck" territory faster than Stephen King's next "Best Seller" can be written out of the blue. For people who say that Saw is "Torture-Porn," you don't know what that is until you watch this movie. This movie is painful, both in how bad and how cruel it is. Keep that in mind as we tear in to Clive Barker's Dread.

Some background, as far as I can tell, this is actually a movie based on a short story from The Books of Blood. Due to the story being relatively short, the writer added more plot, including a subplot with one of the most charming characters Clive Barker himself has ever written: Abby. A variation of this character was written by Barker as a dedication to a friend he had. The friend killed herself, sadly, and as such, the character, as a dedication to her memory, actually had a happy ending. We'll get back to that later, and back to Abby as well.

The movie starts with our main character, Steve, smoking a cigarette after his philosophy class. He meets Quaid, an older college student, who immediately befriends Steve. After some talking, they go to a bar, where Steve tells Quaid why he's anal retentive about riding in cars and keeping a tight schedule. When Steve was fifteen, him and his brother snuck into a bar, and his brother drank too much. His brother gets involved in a fatal crash, but because Steve was late to get a ride, he survived. He punishes himself by keeping a fixed schedule, and has a phobia of riding in cars.

The next we see Steve is at his work place. He works at the school library with Abby. Steve knows Abby has a crush on him, but two things hold him from saying "yes" or "no" to her. The first is that he does kind of like Abby, but likes another girl in his class more. The second, and the big reason I'm making a big deal about her character, is that he doesn't want Abby to think that he doesn't find her attractive because of the birthmark that covers half of her body. This is why the character had a happy ending in the story; Barker's friend committed suicide because of Body Dismorphic Disorder caused by a birthmark that covered half of her body. Abby has a similar problem, which is interesting when you look at her. Abby is actually really, really cute. There's even an IMDB thread that reinforces this. What's funny is that when researching this movie, I was actually disappointed to find that the actress who portrays her, Laura Donnelly, doesn't have that birthmark. Now, with what I just said, we can assume Abby's fate, right? Place your bets, because I may have spoiled her happy ending.

That night, Quaid has a nightmare of his fear. His parents were killed by an axe murderer. When he wakes up, he starts to cook up an idea. The next day, he finds Steve in the library, and tells him to meet him at a club. Before he leaves, he looks at Abby, and says, "Cool birthmark." Abby rolls her eyes, and comments that Quaid is a jerk. Steve goes to meet Quaid, and they talk about what Steve's thesis project should be: interviewing people and pin-pointing where and when their fears started to recapture that feeling of dread. Steve agrees, and they leave with two women. Steve wakes up to a woman moaning. He sees Quaid orally pleasuring his "girlfriend", but is distracted by a woman straddling him.

This scene has no purpose on paper--er... film. Actually, you'd think that, except there's a formula for Clive Barker movies and books. That is for every 1.5 violent scenes, there must be a gratuitous sex scene. This movie has this scene and one later that's much, much more risque. Seeing as this is a Barker movie, it's safe to say that this is normal, and, dare I say, expected.

Steve meets with Cheryl, our movie within a movie's editor, and Steve's love interest. This is curious, because she looks like Lacey Mosely had a kid with Lyle Lovett. Abby is looking even better in comparison to Cheryl. Steve goes to tell Quaid, who is painting a naked woman. As the news is received, "Rusted Wheel" by the Silversun Pickups starts playing over a montage of the three preparing to interview. Great song... except the sound editor fell asleep. The three minute montage ends, and the song (which is six minutes) plays over the first series of interviews. Not like we missed a whole hell of a lot. Two people talk about getting gonorrhea and a gay (seriously) goth teen talks about his first sexual encounter. I get it, movie! You're a Clive Barker movie, now move past that sex!

The trio is more than a little annoyed that they found no one with a good story, which causes Quaid and Steve to get in a fight. Cheryl stops them, and requests that they interview her. As it turns out, Cheryl is afraid of her father due to the fact that he worked at an abattoir, and he came home bloody and smelling of iron and death. Most of you are thinking, "Why didn't he shower?" right? Well, it's actually simple. Cheryl was raised in the country, and the slaughterhouse was on their farm. Because she associates her dad with death, she's afraid of him. This is also why she's a vegetarian. Earlier, we see her ribbing Steve about his burger, and he puts it in front of nose. She takes it as a joke, and mentions here that she isn't afraid of meat. Keep this in mind, folks.

After another day of unsuccessful interviewing, Steve and Cheryl meet Joshua, a teen who, after losing his hearing for a month due to chicken pox, is afraid of sensory deprivation. Quaid says to use him for the study. Abby meets Steve, and asks to be in the study as well, on the condition that Steve meet her at her place alone. He agrees, and when he goes over, finds a picture of Abby's sister, who is "normal." As Abby talks about why she's afraid of being alienated, she mentions that she's ashamed of her birthmark. Steve interjects that she shouldn't be, causing Abby to smile, and show him how deep the birthmark goes. She strips to her underwear, and kisses Steve, but Steve tells her it wouldn't be right, because his heart is elsewhere. Abby kicks him out, embarrassed and irritated.

This is where the movie goes downhill faster than a lead wheel. See, up until this point, we knew Quaid was a creepy asshole, Steve is the typical loner and, yet, a pretty good guy, Abby is self-conscious, and Cheryl is... um... Cheryl. Quaid finds out that Steve jilted Abby, and tells her to stop feeling sorry for herself. Instantly, even though she has addressed to hating Quaid twice, she goes to the goth club with him, offers to pose nude for him (in the condition that she be painted normal), and then has sex with him. She hates how she looks, and yet, is comfortable enough to sleep with a guy she is creeped out by, full well knowing that he's taking advantage of her. Also, keep in mind that Quaid is an evil bastard, and has been filming these events the whole damn time. Want to change those Abby's fate bets, yet?

The three interview a goth girl. Another? What the hell is with all the goths? Anyway, Quaid gets frustrated because the girl is lying. To prove this, he strangles her, then rips a fake scar off of her neck. Cheryl argues with Quaid, who then promptly breaks the camera and the computer with the videos with a baseball bat. Cheryl yells at Steve... for some reason, and leaves. Quaid, being the classy guy he is, asks if Steve did Cheryl yet, and even hints at sleeping with Abby, saying that "Cheryl must be the quiet one. What does she sound like when she comes?" Steve does what we're all thinking by now, and punches Quaid in the face. Quaid wallows in sorry by going to a strip club... but is terrified when he starts to hallucinate that the strippers are killed by an axe murderer.

The next day, Steve finds out that his thesis passed, despite not being able to turn it in. Ends up that Quaid turned it in, and asks Steve to get in the car to apologize. Steve does, and Quaid moves on to the next stage of his plan: make people live there fears. Otherwise known as crowning himself God of the Douchebags. He starts to speed up, and drink from a flask, until Steve steers the car, forcing Quaid to stop. Steve gets out, calls Quaid an asshole, and walks home. Meanwhile, Cheryl finds her computer in Quaid's house, but a bulb burns out. She goes to Quaid's studio where she find the pictures of strippers he's painted, all of them with fresh axe wounds on them. Quaid sneaks up on her, and asks her to be part of his study. Oh, he also finds Joshua. He puts cups over his ears, then puts a gun by both of Joshua's ears, firing it to blow his eardrums up, making him deaf. He dumps Joshua in an alley, saying that he failed his test.

Steve can't get a hold of Cheryl, but runs into Abby who apologizes for her behavior, but admits she's not giving up on Steve. Despite bumping uglies with Quaid for no good reason. They walk to get some lunch together when they see a crowd watching Quaid's tape of him painting and having sex with Abby. The last part is him painting the birthmark on Abby, holding up signs that say, "THIS IS YOUR REALITY! YOU WILL NEVER BE NORMAL!" Now, who didn't see this coming? Really? If you didn't, bash your head a few times with an open palm. Abby, of course, feeling horrible, blames Steve. Wait... what? How could Steve even film that when she knows he wasn't there? Anyway, Steve finds and punches Quaid, again, telling him to stay away from Abby. On the ride back, Abby calls Steve with an ominous message: "Would you love me i I was normal like my sister?"

Money on the tables, my peeps? Here's when we find out about Abby's fate! As Steve rushes to her room, Abby strips down and hops in a bathtub. She takes a Brillo pad to her birthmark, scrubbing the layers of skin off, then bleaches them. After scrubbing the skin off of half of her body, she then stumbles through her dorm, still naked, leaving a blood trail, despite the fact that she'd be burned and in shock, if not dead from the bleach going into a massive open wound. Steve finds her, and stays with her, even in the hospital where she lies comatose. Go back and read my intro to this movie, keeping in mind who Abby is based on. Now, consider this: Clive Barker produced this movie. Isn't this kind of fucking heartless? Why did he agree to this fate for a character he based on someone he cared about? Sure, he's only a producer, but he has creative control over his characters as well seeing as he wrote them in the first place! It's bad enough that Abby threw herself at Quaid for no good reason, this makes it all to more senseless and disgusting.

Steve has had enough, but is spotted by Joshua. Despite having massive ear injuries, Joshua gets up and follows Steve to Quaid's house. Steve bashes Quaid's door in with an axe, but decides killing Quaid isn't worth it. Too bad, because Quaid knocks Steve out, and ties him to a chair. He then shows what happened to Cheryl. Quaid locked Cheryl in a room with a piece of meat. The only way she can leave is if she eats the meat. As the days go by, and the meat rots, Quaid mentions that the meat is fresh, never touched by flies, and the room is cleaned. He also points out that when Cheryl confronts the meat, she yells at Quaid via camera. For some reason, Quaid sees her coming on to him. Sure... why not. After showing that the meat is completely rotted, with maggots crawling out (despite not having contact with insects), Cheryl eats the meat. If Saw is torture porn, than this is like watching your parents, family, significant other, who ever you care about die a slow, painful, agonizing death for no reason. In Saw, lessons of the value of life are "being taught" to the victims. In this, people are being tortured because they either don't fit in with society, or because Quaid can torture them. What's sicker?

Also, what happened to Cheryl not being afraid of meat? They made such a big deal about it, then they reversed it out of the blue? Wouldn't it make more sense to put her in a room full of monitors of slaughterhouses? Or maybe a constant loop of the beginning of Uwe Boll's Seed?

Quaid is about to let Steve look around the house for Cheryl, and let him go free, when he hears a sound. Quaid goes downstairs, and Steve breaks the chair to escape. Following Quaid, he cuts himself free in the kitchen, grabs the knife, and stalks Quaid until... Joshua hits Steve in the chest with an axe. As far as shocks go, this is pretty stupid. Even if Joshua could over come his dizziness to walk over to Quaid's, how did he hear where Steve and Quaid were? You see, Joshua was out of eye line of the two, which means he absolutely had to have heard them moving. Needless to say, Quaid shoots Joshua in the back of the head, over coming his fear. He then watches Steve die, drags is body downstairs, and throws him, and knife, towards Cheryl, saying, "How long will it take you to eat that." Thus, the movie ends.

Late Fee made me feel ashamed of watching it. This makes me feel guilty. The horror aspect is nothing more than a bully being cruel for the sake of being cruel. Most of the characters, especially Steve and Abby, are acted really well, but feel out of place mainly because they weren't characters in the story in the first place (in the story, Steve's character was actually Joshua's character in the movie). And watching the victims of this overbearing bully makes you think that your time isn't better spent elsewhere. He treats his friends like dirt, he uses a woman who needs to be loved (and believe me, if I were Steve, I'd go after Abby, not Cheryl), and he acts like a mean kid with a magnifying glass. This may be what they director was after, but that doesn't make it scary; it just makes it vulgar.

For now, this is the Window Keeper, signing off to do better things than watch people get bullied around. Like baking a pretty cake.