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SYNOPSIS:
Victor is a degenerate millionaire who gets his sadistic,
sexual kicks in his private torture dungeon. With money to
burn, he buys off his mangled victims with the help of his
lawyer, Roman. What Victor doesn't know is that his beautiful
wife Elizabeth and Roman are having an affair. The two plot
to poison him and take his money. But the murderous lovers
make one fatal mistake. Instead of killing Victor, the poison
plunges him into a zombie-like stupor, Victor comes back to
his senses mid-autopsy with only one thing on his mind: bloody
revenge on his would-be killers.
MOVIE
REVIEW
There's
a reason why some movies hit the cinema halls,
and some get relegated straight to the home video
market. This happens to belong to the latter, and the
reasons are so obvious in just the first five minutes
of this short 85 minute movie. Bad acting, bad premise
and bad characterization seem to confirm the dismal
production values, in its attempt to try so hard in
delivering what it thought was a pretty smart
storyline.
Perhaps
one of the key aspects why you probably won't
like the movie, is because none of its characters are
of the likable kind. There's absolutely no reason how
anyone can connect to either one of them (especially
so when the acting's bad) - the bored but rich good
for nothing Victor Harris (Greg Bryk), his adulterous
wife Elizabeth (Kristy Swanson) who is having an
affair with their sneaky lawyer Roman (Josh Peace) -
or feel sorry when they get their just desserts in
this revenge flick.
More than
not, you'd actually expect them to suffer as
much as possible since this is venturing into torture
porn territory with an attic retrofitted with a
torture rack, but what could probably draw some irks
from you is the scene at the morgue, where the budget
constraints are evident as it just cannot live up to
movies which feature similar scenes like Saw IV or
even Unrest. In fact, that scene and its hasty follow
up had pulled back their punches and were put together
so haphazardly, that it features some throwaway
characters brought in just to up the body count, and
gain street cred that it had tried to be as realistic
as possible and had a decent make up and props
departments.
The
only one thing worth reading up about after you've
watched the movie (if you're still up to it that is),
is the effects of toxins, whether it can cause what
you see in the movie - that of extreme paralysis to
the point of near death. Otherwise, this is strictly
for those interested in watching a bad movie just to
understand how best to avoid making one, then Living
Death could be worth the collection and filed under "I
Can Do Better Than This".
SPECIAL FEATURES :
The primary feature here is the Behind-The-Scenes
of Living Death, running almost 21 minutes, and subtitled
in Japanese only. Containing an interview with the director
Erin, what took me by surprise was his revelation that he
sees a number of flaws in the movie and that he actually has
plenty of stuff he might want to change if given a second
shot at it. Talk about the lack of confidence in your own
product. Interviews with the main casts are also included,
and the best bits were how the gory bits and key scenes in
the film were made. Word of warning though, this feature contains
massive spoilers, so hit the movie first
before watching anything from this feature.
Watching
this feature was somewhat more entertaining
than the feature itself, and the rating at the bottom
summarizes this rare instance. The only other features
are unrelated trailers with the likes of Vacancy,
Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud, Wind Chill and 5ive Girls.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
For
a movie going straight to video, visual transfer in anamorphic
widescreen is excellent, almost pristine and you'd hardly
see any flaws, which is a pity that
the content didn't live up to its technical strengths. And
I actually salute this technical integrity in presenting the
movie in the best possible format. Even
the audio is mastered in 5.1 in English, Thai and Japanese,
but surprisingly the menu options are kept muted with nary
a squeak. Menu navigation is available
either in English, Mandarin or the Thai language..
MOVIE
RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Stefan Shih
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