Paranormal Activity grossed nearly 200 million dollars against its budget of 15 thousand dollars. Think about all of the promotion behind it though. Those brilliant night vision commercials of audience members freaking out were perfect marketing tools. Plus, you have a found footage film getting a wide theatrical release, which is not unheard of but also not common, and is being promoted by a large studio! It was impressive. Let’s take a step back, in fact, let’s step back six years before that. Would it be just as impressive to have a film made for just under one million dollars, with virtually no marketing, and bringing in [a reported] roughly 75 million dollars from home video sales ONLY? In 2003 nonetheless! That film is Dead End.
Dead End follows Frank Harrington (Ray Wise), his wife Laura (Lin Shaye), his daughter Marion (Alexandra Holden), his son Richard (Mick Cain), and Marion’s partner Brad (William Rosenfield), on a road trip to his in-laws. It’s Christmas Eve, and Frank decides to take a shortcut off the highway, hoping to stay awake. Shortly into Frank’s foray off the beaten path, he falls asleep and nearly crashes the car. That’s when things get…weird. The Harrington’s, and Brad, find themselves on a never-ending straight road, but that doesn’t mean the story isn’t full of twists and turns.
Writers/directors Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa struck lightning in a bottle, even if they left the lid slightly ajar. Story wise, Dead End is incredibly straightforward. A family is stuck on a singular road, while something starts picking them off individually. Dead End uses its charm to hide the lack of originality but excels with its modified chamber-piece storytelling. It’s one of those rare psychological horror films that finds itself more entertaining when you figure out the outcome (and trust me, if you’re even half paying attention, you’ll figure out the ending pretty quickly). Each entrance of the murdered-out hearse adds a palpable level of dread and terror.
This might draw some criticism, but I don’t think Lin Shaye is a great actor. She’s not terrible, though one must wonder how far her career would have gone without a studio executive brother in high power. Ray Wise and Alexandra Holden are the glue that holds Dead End together, the fuel of this film’s engine, perhaps. Holden and Wise play off each other incredibly convincingly. However, there’s something about watching Ray Wise swing a hatchet around and say/yell, “LAURA” over and over again. Ray Wise is a treat and we should all be thankful to live in the same time that he did.
Andrea and Canepa don’t do anything overly interesting with their directing style, nor does cinematographer Alexander Buono either. And that’s okay. A film like Dead End almost works better with everything played at face value. We don’t need over-the-top filmmaking techniques or crazy camera movements to force a feeling of something. Dead End plays its cards face up and lets the audience sit shoulder-to-shoulder in this cramped car with a family who is very much unhappy. Its straightforwardness makes you feel trapped in the car on this endless road.
The biggest downfall of Dead End is the character of Richard. That’s no knock on Mick Cain’s acting. Cain did what he could with his character, even if you can feel the 400+ episodes of soap opera acting come through here and there. But Richard is just an extremely unlikable, homophobic, twerp who you just hope gets the worst of it. Why are so many films from the aughts abundantly filled with f-slurs and r-slurs?
As someone who doesn’t enjoy Christmas, and Christmas films by proxy, Dead End is the perfect addition to any December watchlist. It’s a dysfunctional family film that can be enjoyed by the whole family after a hearty Christmas dinner. Ray Wise is just as precious as always. If you’re looking for another wide-eyed performance from him, then this is the film for you.
