Dead Tone (2007)

Yes this is a below average slasher copy flick, but it DOES feature the semi-legendary Rutger Hauer AND it has just recently been revealed in the Denver metropolitan area that one of the original financers of this film is Steve Atwater--potential hall of famer Denver Bronco's safety and one of the cast members is legendary Denver Bronco cornerback Ray Crockett!For long time fans of the Denver Broncos, this is more than enough to establish this near-forgotten movie as a cult classic! If you love the Broncos, you owe it to your fandom status to watch this movie!

"We are all going to fu&$%ng die!" Prank calling leads to a massacre. Yep, that is pretty much the motive for a psychopath wearing a winter coat (the kind of coat a participant in the Iditarod would wear), wielding a steel ax (I admit, the ax is cool-looking), is on the pursuit of college kids attending a party held at an impressive mansion. The festivities include drinking and hook-ups, along with non-stop swearing. The opening has kids playing "75", a prank calling game requiring those participating to keep the victim on the opposite line on the phone for 75 seconds. They prank the wrong fellow and he proceeds to interrupt their parents' party, butchering all the adults in attendance before the police arrive. Ten years later, the children, now young adults, are next to be selected as ax victims, having witnessed the bloody onslaught to their parents. At the party of the film, 75 is played once again and like before the killer is contacted, torturing some poor soul for the stunned, rowdy college crowd, soon learning of their location, intruding upon them with ax in tow. You know the rest. Formulaic, generic, familiar slasher—the content and characters are as obnoxious and annoying as you'd expect. My user reviews for these movies sound repetitive like a broken record recycled over and over because what I am watching is repetitive like a broken record recycled over and over. The slasher genre as a whole fails to produce imaginative story-telling and I don't expect much when I watch a movie featuring young people butchered by psychos, but there's always a desire to be surprised. It doesn't happen often, but occasionally a slasher movie comes along that challenges the status quo regarding a not so depressingly ordinary plot delivering interesting characters instead of the usual dimbulb dunderheads. Presented by Flavor Flav's Nine Tails, which should tell you all you need to know about how this film will likely turn out from the get-go. Of course, there's a twist regarding the mastermind behind the newer murders and the ending, as detectives (including veteran cop Rutger Hauer, positively wasted and almost forgotten as the final rampage takes up the final twenty minutes) try to find the remaining kids, scattered about after adoptions sent them to different locations, actually aid the psycho, will likely be sure to infuriate many viewers (obviously designed to do so). Yes, there's the typical barricade of group in bedroom, bickering that leads to punches and shouting matches, and the stupid decision to split up which leads to members being picked off one at a time (most of the deaths occur off-screen, with a couple of decent beheadings the main attractions for an otherwise tiresome slasher that offers nothing fresh or innovative). "Dead Tone" is just another slasher destined for burial into obscurity, Hauer's presence in the movie, no matter how muted, the draw for many viewers in the future.

There are times when you want a horror movie to be genuinely frightening ---if this is one of those times for you, you might want to hang up on Dead Tone. It's just not that type of slasher. It's more of the get-a- bunch-of-your-friends-together-throw-stuff-at-the-screen-and-play- drinking-games kind of a slasher.I've never thought ultra-graphic horror was that frightening...in movies, that is, especially on-a-budget outings like this. Kind of like the shark in Jaws, the closer you get to it, the less horrific it seems. The killer in Dead Tone wears a hooded ski parka and wields an axe, so the kills are violent, but you see them coming for seconds before they hit. From that point on, it's just a matter of how bad the effects suck.Still, Dead Tone ain't a total snooze. Given the lack of thrills, marginal to bad acting, and zero character development, all that's really left to make this watchable is "how serious are the directors taking this?" Turns out, not very...and that's good.There's the standard rest-stop sequence, where the "crew" (a multi-culti Benneton crew, of course) stops to take a bathroom break, and that whole scene --- toothless redneck from hell clerk, mega-blasted "fright" music cues at the stupidest moments --- really works. When this film is lampooning the genre and itself, it's the best and brightest.Sadly, though, those moments are few and far between. There are a lot of visual and scripted call-backs to other, better slashers (Urban Legend, Black Christmas, etc.) that prove the filmmakers weren't just rubes. But they didn't quite have a handle on what they wanted to do, and the film as a whole suffers for it. Oh yeah, a postscript: Rutger Hauer is the brand-name star here, playing the usual doggerel cop role, and looking barely engaged enough to make camera contact. One mystery at least solved: I wondered how he managed to tumble down the long road to something like the rancid "Hobo With a Shotgun"...this is a telling detour.

When I caught a glimpse of the title I thought are we going to get another try-hard hip slasher, but actually I found "7eventy 5ive" to be a mildly passable, and almost 80s throwback after a tediously slow mid-section it picks up momentum for the final half-hour leading to it's outrageously tacky climax and downright cop out ending. It won't win awards for originality, because it's as systematic as you can get and steals its thunder in the way of thrills (usual cheap jump scares), location (secluded mansion) and motivation from other films. The gleaming direction is by-the-book and the material is quite hackneyed with poorly realised red herrings within its elaborate plotting and flimsy script. Sometimes laughable, but nonetheless I was entertained mainly due to its brutal and grisly acts of pulpy violence towards some rather obnoxiously annoying college students by a psychotic killer with a battle axe. The performances weren't bad in the shape of a spunky young cast, however the characters they were portraying weren't particularly enticing. An always presentable Rutger Hauer shows up in a short supportive role as a grizzled detective. A slickly made, but a shallow and forgettable addition to the fold.