By David Dent
The title isn’t the only thing borrowed by first time feature director David Torrone for his slasher/occult opus set in an empty theatre.
A group of actors/dancers have come to rehearse at the Heissenhoff theatre, a venue with a dark history; in recent weeks a visiting scholar/lecturer had been killed offstage while addressing his followers, and back in 1994 an entire audience died of a heart attack. Some believe that the theatre has been built on the site of a portal to another dimension.
While most of the cast are dismissive of such stories, they change their tune when a murderer moves among them, wearing a mask made of eyeballs, and proceeds to off them, one by one. The remaining members of the troupe feel that there might be something occult occurring after all.
Broken down into chapters with subtitles like ‘Bloody Nail’ and ‘the roar of a chainsaw’ (this preparing the audience for what will occur next), DbD is such a dull, derivative and predictable affair that when the director changes from colour to black and white to offer up an extended sequence that finally moves things from slasher to horror, it’s just accepted that this whole section is pretty much lifted from Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake of Suspiria. Chuck in some Argento and Soavi references, and you’ve got, well, a mean-spirited bloody mess which at less than 90 minutes feels like twice that.
There’s no denying some stylish photography and moody lighting, but the whole thing is just so plodding and lacking in interest, it’s like a goth music video where the band forgot to turn up.
Oh and apparently the whole thing was based on a true story of events that took place in Katusze in the winter of 2023, which I suspect is as factually bogus as the rest of the film. Dreadful.
Dead By Dawn screened as part of Grimmfest 2025.
Bloody Flicks 