BANG BANG! YOU'RE DEAD! By: SASHA SLAUGHTER

Well hello there blog stalkers!! Sasha Slaughter here with you, and yes, Zane and I are back...did you miss us?? Sure you did! We hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving, your food coma and we really hope you enjoyed lounging in your sheep pants (Wait, that was me...oops!). It's back to business as usual at DEH, and that means that we'll be bringing you some more mind blowing awesomeness, we're professionals, it's what we do! 

Now that Thanksgiving is over, we've got yet another holiday looming over our heads...Christmas! And in the spirit of the holiday season, I'll be telling you about a movie called Dead End. It takes place right around Christmas, so it's the perfect way to start the season, no? Dead End was released in 2003 and was written and directed by Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa. Dead End is a French film that was made in the USA. So , let me tell you about the movie.

On Christmas Eve, Frank Harrington and his family are driving through California for their annual trip to Frank's Mother in Law's house. Frank decides to take a different route through the forest to get to their destination. While driving, Frank falls asleep at the wheel and almost crashes into another car going the opposite direction. Shortly after, Frank sees a woman in white with a baby walking in the forest. He decides to turn around and look for her but doesn't find her. 

He looks once more and the woman in white appears at the car window and he invites her and her baby into the car. Frank's daughter Marion, who can't take the family fighting anymore, gives up her seat to the woman and decides to walk instead. The family tries to talk to the woman, but she doesn't respond. Frank finds a roadside cabin and decides to stop and see if he can get help. Frank and his wife Laura enter the cabin, leaving Marion's boyfriend Brad alone with the woman in the car.

The woman begins talking to Brad and eventually reveals that the baby she is holding is dead. Brad then screams, and when Frank and Laura return to the car, Brad and the woman are gone. The rest of the family begins looking for him, and while Marion is walking down the road she sees Brad in the back window of a black hearse which drives by slowly. Marion finds her parents to tell them that Brad has been taken, and they go to find him. They are quickly forced to stop after they run over a bump in the road. 

When the family gets out to investigate they find Brad's dead body. A while later, the family realizes that all clocks and watches have stopped at 7:30. Their younger son Richard suggests alien activity, with his idea immediately dismissed. Frank then encounters a black baby carriage in the middle of the road. Frank and Laura start fighting again, while Richard moves the carriage off of the road. He returns to the car and as they are ready to leave they see the carriage in the middle of the road again.

Frank and Laura resume their heated argument when suddenly Marion announces that she is pregnant. Richard then admits that he is doing drugs. The family stops to fix the car and Richard goes into the forest to get high. He encounters the woman in white. They begin kissing and the woman rips Richard's bottom lip off. While fixing the car, the family sees Richard in the back of a black hearse and begin to run after it. 

They then quickly get in the car and follow the hearse. Again they are stopped by yet another bump in the road. They stop to find Richard's burnt dead body. Devastated, Laura reveals that Richard was not Frank's son, and that she had had an affair in the past. They put Richard's body in the back of the car and drive on.

Back on the road, Laura is beginning to show signs of insanity. She begins acting childlike and drawing pictures of Brad's dead body. Frank then sees a sign for "Marcott", which he believes in a Naval base, and that they are on a military road. Laura eventually falls asleep but shortly after, wakes up and has to vomit, so they pull the car over again. She then sees a gun in the car, which was a gift for her gun obsessed brother. In her childish, confused state, Laura believes that the gun is a toy, so she threatens her daughter and husband with it. Frank then tells her that Richard is dead and she has to accept reality, so she shoots him in the leg. Marion cleans the wound and they are on the road again, this time with Marion driving.

Laura claims to see faces outside of the car windows and tells Frank and Marion that they all look sad. She then sees a friend of hers who had passed away, and demands that the car be stopped so she can see her. No one stops the car, so Laura opens the door and jumps out. The car is stopped just in time for Frank and Marion to see that Laura is being taken away by a hearse. Frank shoots at the hearse, causing it to stop. Laura stumbles toward them and says that she is fine but her head hurts. Feeling her head, Laura realizes that the back of her skull is split open. She eventually dies and Frank puts her in the back of the car.

 Frank thinks that getting out is hopeless, so he takes a gun and puts it to his chin but Marion stops him. They begin driving on the road again, and Frank explains to her about Alan, the man with whom her mother had an affair. He then begins drinking whiskey but Marion grabs the bottle and tosses it out the window. Frank is convinced the only way out is to walk through the woods. They get out of the car and walk, and eventually find themselves back where they started, realizing they walked in a complete circle. Frank finds the cabin from before and goes inside. The woman in white appears behind him and....

And then??? Go ahead over to Netflix and check out Dead End if you really wanna know what happens next! This movie was decent. It wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible either. Not really sure if I'd call this a horror movie or not. It's more of a suspense type thing with a bit of comedy thrown in. The acting was ok, but the character of Richard really got on my nerves. I will say though that the character of the mom was great...after she went insane of course. OMG! It was a riot! 

The scene where she was chowing down on pie was too funny! I mean, she really nailed the whole childish, insane thing for sure! I laughed out loud quite a few times just watching her. I felt that the dialogue wasn't all that clever, it was almost as if a 7 year old wrote it. It indeed was a super cheesy movie, but what do you expect from Troma film??? I wasn't really scared watching this, but I will admit, for about .8 seconds, I was kind of confused. The ending itself I figured out, but how the plot unfolds left me scratching my head a bit.

The film almost had sort of a Twilight Zone feel to it in a way. Shorten it down to about 30 or 40 mins (Which could have been easily done, I'm sure) and BAM! Twilight Zone material! The thing I didn't like is that they didn't show the dead bodies of Brad (the boyfriend) or Richard (the son). I wanna see some dead bodies people...not the terrified reaction on of the families faces! DAMN SON! 

Overall I'd give Dead End a 2.5 out of 5. What lowered the score was the fact that they didn't show dead bodies, and like I said, the dialogue wasn't that great. The ending was a twist, I didn't completely see it coming, but I had a feeling that something like that would happen. And it wasn't scary at all. In fact, I was more amused than I was scared. So there you have it creeps. Now, how about you go on and see what Zane's got going on in his corner of the blog....you'll be glad you did!