DVD Review: Deadtime / Cert: 18 / Director: Tony Jopia / Screenplay: Stephen Bishop / Starring: Laurence Saunders, Carl Coleman, Elisabeth Shahlavi, Leslie Grantham, Terry Christian / Release Date: Out Now
Often, when you’re watching a small-budget B-movie, you can see the fun that the artists are having on screen. The fun of making a horror movie bleeds into the audience, and a good time is had by all. This is pretty much the only saving grace of Deadtime, which is not a good movie, but it is the sort of fun that old fashioned gore-hounds will enjoy.
The premise of Deadtime is a pretty standard schlock-fest plot. Love Meets Murder are a down on their luck rockband who get sent by their label to an abandoned warehouse. The move features cameos by both Leslie Grantham and Terry Christian, who are both utterly terrible in their bit parts. (Yes, this is a film where the stunt-casting is wide-mouthed gobshite Terry Christian and Dirty Den, both of whom aren’t even trying to act. This is as good as the movie gets. Seriously.) Once the hapless victims get to the warehouse murder, mayhem and utter nonsense ensues.
The production team clearly had more fun making it than you’ll have watching it, but as a bad horror movie for beer-o-clock, you could do a lot worse. It’s pretty gory, the plot is incoherent and I’m sorry to say that the acting is terrible. The cast aren’t terribly pretty and the production values are very, very cheap. But it is also totally aware that it isn’t any good, and rather than playing for laughs, it does its best to be a horror romp. If this movie was a Christmas present, it’d be a pair of Day-Glo socks that don’t fit and happen to be covered in fake blood. If you’re looking for an action filled, awful movie, watch Ninja Terminator. If you want to see a crap but gory film made in Birmingham, watch Deadtime.
Special Features: Behind the scenes, Interviews with cast and crew.
