Dead Tone Holiywood Movie
Cast&Crew
Theatrical Release:9/3/2009
roduction Credits
Director - Brian Hooks
Screenplay - Brian Hooks
Screenplay - Vashon Nutt
Producer - Deon Taylor
Director - Deon Taylor
Screenplay - Deon Taylor
Original Music - Vincent Gillioz
Director Of Photography - Philip Lee
Cast:Brian Hooks, Jud Tylor, Cherie Johnson, German Legarreta, Antwon Tanner, Wil Horneff, Aimee Garcia, Rutger Hauer, Denyce Lawton , Gwendoline Yeo, Jonathan Chase.
Reviews
Plot:Finals at the prestigious University of Dreyskill are finally over and it's time to party. "The Crew", as they are known by their peers and dorm mates, are invited to a rich classmate's hideaway mansion high up in the hills of Colorado. What was supposed to be a weekend of fun and relaxation quickly becomes a trip they will never forget... If they survive! A simple game of prank scare phone calls becomes an intense game of survival and escape when one of the Crew members accidentally calls the wrong person.
My Thoughts:Telephone Tag and Bag.
Review:Usually, slasher movies where the killer stalks his victims via telephone don't turn out really well. This is because "Scream" did it best, and no slasher movie post-"Scream" was able to replicate said success. "Dead Tone" uses the same plot points, killer, telephone, death, gruesome killings which tie into all three. But, in this movie, rather than the killer calling you, a prank call is what sets the killer off.
This is one of those movies where some dumb kids make a prank phone call, they "prank" the wrong guy, and he comes to their house or residence, and slaughters them viciously. To be honest, this would happen a lot more in america if prank-call victims had the abilityi to track their prankers. I mean take myspace for example. Plenty of people have been murdered off myspace because they spread gossip, or played pranks on people online.
There was even a case in Missouri where a girl killed herself because she was pranked via myspace by a grown woman posing as a teenager. But this movie takes the throwback approach to prank phone-calling. Using a regular phone, not a cellphone or any sort of modern-day technology. In this movie, a teen plays a game called "7eventy 5ive", where the object of it all is to make prank calls, and sell the person on the other end on any random bullshit from someone being dead, to someone cheating on their spouse.
The film starts off with the same teen, played by Brian Hooks, playing the game as a small child. The game ends up drawing a psychopath to the house, and he slaughters one of his friends parents. Fast-forward to college, he's still playing the same old game. Now, it's finals time, and finals are over. So it's time to party. While at the party, which because this is a slasher movie, is held way up in the sticks, far from campus, they decide to play the game yet again.
This turns out to be a fatal mistake, as they get yet another serial killer on the line. This comes as a result of one of the girls at the party forgetting to press *67 before dialing. Hence, the killer continues to call back. The same girl then later on, answers the phone, and gives the killer their address. Well he then mosey's on up there to the mansion where the party is being held, and well, you can guess what happens from here. This is Deon Taylor's second attempt at horror.
The earlier attempt being the horror/anthology "Nite Tales". While "Dead Tone" is better than "Nite Tales" in terms of budget, style, and characters, it is not nearly as much fun to watch as "Nite Tales". This is because the characters are made out to be such idiots, and the cliches are all over the place like spiders in a dusty basement. The film doesn't try to do anything different from the over a thousand slasher films which came before it. Nor does it really put forth a character who can be the hero.
It kind of mixes all of these kids together, and gives them each problems. Either being too goofy, too angry, too aloof, or too dumb. Pretty much, you begin to think all of these kids are goners when the axe murderer finally arrives. The only meat to this movie is Rutger Hauer, as a grizzled cop who is obsessed with the "7eventy 5ive" murders from many years ago, and thinks the killer will strike again soon.
He has no proof, nor does he have any evidence that he will, but you know horror movies, all those cops always have "slasher movie hunches", where they can sniff out a killer from a mile away. Yet, they still always get there late after everyone is dead, and in most cases, end up getting dead themselves. At any rate, Hauer is really a footnote in this movie. He doesn't get much screentime due to the teens who we have to see party in like 20 or 30 scenes.
The deaths in this movie don't come quick or soon enough, and instead are postponed for suspense and tension that doesn't work no matter how many times the writer tries to stick it in there. When the deaths do finally happen, they're nothing to write home about. Chops, slashes, and that's it. Nothing creative here. This all leads to the films finale where a really bogus and quite nutty twist reveals the killer to be not as they seem.
The twist adds some flavor to the end of the movie, but it's so borderline nuts that it seemed to me like the writers needed something that had never been done before, so they took something old as a twist, and added a new twist to that twist. The final scene though plays out just as one would expect it to, and foreshadows a sequel. Maybe they'll call it "7eventy 6ix"? or "Dead Tone 2:The Callback"? Either way "Dead Tone" is a slasher movie that atleast takes a shot at cast diversity, but it follows all the same old, stale slasher movie rules, and will bore you once it gets past the first 25 minutes.
Positives:A diverse cast, very sharply filmed.
Negatives:Never takes any chances, shows no bravery, follows the same slasher movie rules, some characters are hyper-dumb, uncreative deaths, and a lame twist at the end.
Overall:One star out of four.
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