Film Review: Dead Noon (2007)

SYNOPSIS:

In this shoot ’em up western horror tale, ancient demons, walking skeletons and cowboy zombies join forces to take the law down in a blaze of hellfire and brimstone. With the powers of hell at his disposal, Frank, a blood-thirsty outlaw from the old west, is resurrected to seek his revenge on the present day town of Weston. As the past collides with the present, Sheriff Logan Kane, his incompetent younger brother, Stuart, and sexy gun shop owner Grace will have to fight a posse of the undead to save the town and rescue Logan’s new bride from a fate worse than death.

REVIEW:

Directed by Andrew Wiest

Written by Keith Suta, Matthew Taggart, Andrew Wiest.

I love most low budget movies but I can’t love all of them. I have tried to like “Dead Noon” after all it was made for a little over four thousand dollars, so it would normally be the sort of horror film I would champion. But I can’t do it. I can’t love this movie, hell I don’t even like it. Even watching it drunk at three in the morning with your friends won’t make it any better. “Dead Noon” is just not a good movie, there I said it. I don’t know about you but I feel better. Now I feel free to discuss the film like an adult.

The best part of the movie is the part added after the movie was finished as a sort of a wraparound. Kane Hodder has presence and has a wonderful voice for story telling, I just wish he told a better story. While I liked Kane in the movie, his part was just put in there and didn’t add anything to the story, but he isn’t a bad actor at all.

Now lets look at the rest of the movie shall we? If you ever thought that it would be interesting to see a gun fight between two people who can’t hit the broad side of a barn then you have found the movie for you. A western style gun fight in the snow sounds like a good idea and should be a very visual arresting scene but when the two characters get as close as a few feet from each other and miss, and then continue running and shooting I find myself wondering if I need some more popcorn or whether I have fallen asleep and am making it up as I am going along. At this point I don’t care if the Sheriff or the outlaw wins the shoot out which isn’t a good sign. Then we follow up this scene with the devil (the director, there is a joke here but I am not making it) losing a game of poker to the outlaw and sending him by bridge back to our world (present time) to take vengeance on the town and the sheriff’s family tree.

The outlaw isn’t very imposing which makes it harder to take him seriously as the villain who can shoot fireballs out of his gun and who has beaten the devil. His evil pose’s make up doesn’t stand up to any close ups and the effects are hit and miss. There is only so much you can do with digital fire before it looks like a cartoon effect. On the plus side there is a high dead count of the people in the town but the endless chase and kill gets old after a while. There are so artistic dream like shots and some weird video game backgrounds for the heroes as they get ready for battle. It makes me feel like I should be watching “House of the Dead”. Some of the acting seems to be trying for a realistic feel and other parts seem like its tongue and cheek. The gun fight against the skeleton puppets is just painful, has no one heard of stop motion? I have an image in my head of the film makers throwing as many skeleton dummies off the hills as they could throw until their arms were too tired to throw anymore.

What I liked about “Dead Noon”:
*Lillith Fields as the gun store owner who loves the sheriff
seemed believable as a hard ass gun shooting sexy blonde.

I wish she was in the movie more.

* It was shot on the Panasonic DVX 100 which is one of my favorite
cameras.

*the movie has a pretty good look to it, some nice editing.
*They filmed and finished a feature, which no matter what else I can say about

it that is impressive. And it didn’t look as low budget as it was.

What I didn’t like about the movie:
*I have already said my issues with the movie, no reason to go back over it.

“Dead Noon” isn’t a movie I can say I like but we all have different favorite movies and maybe you will see something I didn’t see in it. I feel bad for not having found something better to say. I am sure that the film makers worked long and hard on the movie. The movie is available on amazon. Lights out.

SYNOPSIS:
In this shoot ’em up western horror tale, ancient demons, walking skeletons and cowboy zombies join forces to take the law down in a blaze of hellfire and brimstone. With the powers of hell at his disposal, Frank, a blood-thirsty outlaw from the old west, is resurrected to seek his revenge on the present day town of Weston. As the past collides with the present, Sheriff Logan Kane, his incompetent younger brother, Stuart, and sexy gun shop owner Grace will have to fight a posse of the undead to save the town and rescue Logan’s new bride from a fate worse than death

REVIEW:

Directed by Andrew Wiest

Written by Keith Suta, Matthew Taggart, Andrew Wiest.

I love most low budget movies but I can’t love all of them. I have tried to like “Dead Noon” after all it was made for a little over four thousand dollars, so it would normally be the sort of horror film I would champion. But I can’t do it. I can’t love this movie, hell I don’t even like it. Even watching it drunk at three in the morning with your friends won’t make it any better. “Dead Noon” is just not a good movie, there I said it. I don’t know about you but I feel better. Now I feel free to discuss the film like an adult.

The best part of the movie is the part added after the movie was finished as a sort of a wraparound. Kane Hodder has presence and has a wonderful voice for story telling, I just wish he told a better story. While I liked Kane in the movie, his part was just put in there and didn’t add anything to the story, but he isn’t a bad actor at all.

Now lets look at the rest of the movie shall we? If you ever thought that it would be interesting to see a gun fight between two people who can’t hit the broad side of a barn then you have found the movie for you. A western style gun fight in the snow sounds like a good idea and should be a very visual arresting scene but when the two characters get as close as a few feet from each other and miss, and then continue running and shooting I find myself wondering if I need some more popcorn or whether I have fallen asleep and am making it up as I am going along. At this point I don’t care if the Sheriff or the outlaw wins the shoot out which isn’t a good sign. Then we follow up this scene with the devil (the director, there is a joke here but I am not making it) losing a game of poker to the outlaw and sending him by bridge back to our world (present time) to take vengeance on the town and the sheriff’s family tree.

The outlaw isn’t very imposing which makes it harder to take him seriously as the villain who can shoot fireballs out of his gun and who has beaten the devil. His evil pose’s make up doesn’t stand up to any close ups and the effects are hit and miss. There is only so much you can do with digital fire before it looks like a cartoon effect. On the plus side there is a high dead count of the people in the town but the endless chase and kill gets old after a while. There are so artistic dream like shots and some weird video game backgrounds for the heroes as they get ready for battle. It makes me feel like I should be watching “House of the Dead”. Some of the acting seems to be trying for a realistic feel and other parts seem like its tongue and cheek. The gun fight against the skeleton puppets is just painful, has no one heard of stop motion? I have an image in my head of the film makers throwing as many skeleton dummies off the hills as they could throw until their arms were too tired to throw anymore.

What I liked about “High Noon”:
*Lillith Fields as the gun store owner who loves the sheriff
seemed believable as a hard ass gun shooting sexy blonde.

I wish she was in the movie more.

* It was shot on the Panasonic DVX 100 which is one of my favorite
cameras.

*the movie has a pretty good look to it, some nice editing.
*They filmed and finished a feature, which no matter what else I can say about

it that is impressive. And it didn’t look as low budget as it was.

What I didn’t like about the movie:
*I have already said my issues with the movie, no reason to go back over it.

“Dead Noon” isn’t a movie I can say I like but we all have different favorite movies and maybe you will see something I didn’t see in it. I feel bad for not having found something better to say. I am sure that the film makers worked long and hard on the movie. The movie is available on amazon. Lights out.