In the Victorian Era, way before smart phones and video games, the upper and middle class passed the time with parlor games. These games took the form of group based activities with one of the most known being Charades.
The film Dead Body is about a group of recent high school graduates and a parlor game that goes terribly awry. Before they head out to college, and in celebration of their milestone, the group of friends head out to a cabin in the woods for a last hurrah before adulthood. The group of nine friends contemplate playing with an old Playstation 2, but one of them suggests the parlor game Dead Body.
What begins as a simple old fashioned game of sophisticated hide-and-go-seek– with a pinch rendering whoever is caught, dead, by a designated “killer”– soon takes a real life deadly turn. One within their group has found this game as a befitting opportunity to take out the remaining eight. But who’s responsible for the bloodshed that follows and what’s the motivation? As bodies drop and their numbers dwindle the remaining survivors must expose the hand behind the murder and mayhem before it’s too late for them.
Dead Body plays like an Agatha Christie mystery, infused with edge-of-your seat thrills, and splattered with bloody slasher tropes. The film’s power lies in its ability to inoculate the viewer, and hence, magnetizing the audience into the story and placing them in the middle of the massacre and mystery. With very little time for the viewer to figure it all out, director Bobbin Ramsey does an excellent job in concealing the killer from the viewer with carefully chosen perspectives and devilish thrills. Even when we are left with a few survivors, knowing that amongst them remains a twisted killer, there is still very little comfort left in trusting anyone.
The film’s suspenseful direction is in large part due to the masterful script by Ian Bell and Ramon Isao, who’s first act exposition lends to the film’s overall suspicion among the cast of players. The audience can’t trust anyone, and neither can the nine, with mistrust used as a device that carries throughout the film with effectiveness. Dead Body is an exciting and impressive achievement in the mystery/horror hybrid genre and a film that audiences will enjoy. This one is destined to become a hit.
Dead Body recently played at the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival. The film also played at this year’s Phoenix International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival, where it was nominated for Best Horror Feature. Dead Body stars: Cooper Hopkins, Rachel Brun, Leah Pfenning, Nic Morden, Nathan Pringle, Koe Sakuta, Spencer Hamp, Miho Aizawa, and Jay Myers.
Follow all the latest on Dead Body at their official Facebook Page. Check out the trailer below.
