Written and directed by Elric Kane, co-written by Webb Wilcoxen, a young woman lost in a series of meaningless connections falls in love with a charismatic and sensitive man, who hides a dark secret that turns her affair into a dangerous obsession. Starring: Blu Hunt, Ben Smith-Petersen, John Karna, Katherine Hughes, Emily Joy Lemus, Josh Marble, Brennan Mejia, Joey Millin, Sally Sum and Aerial Washington.
As if women didn’t have enough to worry about with dating apps, Elric Kane and Webb Wilcoxen are here to add a new fear. Excuse the pun, as it’s terribly cheesy, but The Dead Thing takes ghosting to another level. They kick things off by capturing the monotony of casual encounters, meeting different people and yet being stuck in a cycle of the same experience. So, when someone comes along to change that, of course Alex (Blu Hunt) jumps at the chance for a genuine connection.
What follows her intimate and romantic evening is a winding path of intense feelings and blurred reality. It’s an enthralling concept but Kane and Wilcoxen are opening up so many avenues while leaving out a lot of details. Disappointingly, it gives up a lot of its runtime to over-extended sex scenes which are somewhat repetitive. It’s keeping its own story at arm’s length and when it finally does get into a good rhythm, the film is about to end.
Something that comes to mind quite quickly is that it would have been interesting to see what involvement by women in the writing and direction could have brought to The Dead Thing. There’s a lot of underdeveloped angles, it taps a lot into domestic abuse, and particularly women’s safety with dating apps.
There was a huge potential to use its supernatural edge to bleed into a number of relevant themes in today’s world for women. To use the story in that sense could have really strengthened its quality because there’s so much to this behaviour of obsession and possession that harks to women’s daily experiences and fears. Horror typically provides a good avenue to explore social issues in a striking way.
Kane’s directorial style builds a great tension but the intensity as a whole isn’t quite there. It keeps things on a surprisingly even keel, it’s rarely using highs and lows but rather flows as if its leading lady is being carried out to sea. It has a light grip on the darkness to this story but doesn’t dive in, it had the potential for all sorts of chaos but keeps things contained. They create quite a small world for Alex to exist in, so it keeps a sense of intimacy going throughout.
Blu Hunt gives an enjoyable performance, but we don’t actually learn that much about Alex. It feels like there were a fair number of gaps to fill in her background and personality. Hunt makes her relatable, capable and intelligent but she’s not entirely rounded out. You could argue there’s even more missing with Ben Smith-Petersen’s Kyle, he has a strong vagueness to him, but you could also argue that was intentional. The performances across the board are solid but sadly, they’re not very memorable characters.
The Dead Thing starts off well but while the story works, not enough is happening. It moves too gradually to keep up its momentum, especially when it’s not expanding the story. They had an interesting idea, it’s shot well and has a good cast but there’s a lot of unmet potential. It waits too long to embrace its dark side, and it feels like a woman’s touch could have helped to delve deeper into the many relevant issues that arise with this story.
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