BEFORE DAWN (2012) Dir: Dominic Brunt

Zombie movies are my favourite kind of horror flick but recently they seem to be everywhere, why is this a bad thing? because the majority are utter crap and incredibly cheap looking. Some one who shares my views on this is Tim Porter who gives us his look at British zombie flick Before Dawn. Check out Tim's words after the jump...

Written By Tim Porter

For those of you based in the UK, Dominic Brunt is best known as playing Paddy in the soap opera Emmerdale. Outside of that it will come as a shock to many, unless you are well endeavored with the genre of Horror that Paddy in his spare time went off and made a zombie movie. Teaming up with Marc Price (the producer and director of ‘Colin’) ‘Before Dawn’ centers around a last ditch attempt at salvaging a marriage, which even in the opening movement of this film is pretty much dead in the water.

Alex (played by Brunt, who also was the editor and director of this film) travels with his estranged wife Meg (played by Brunt’s real life spouse Joanne Mitchell) to an idyllic cottage away from the city. Right off the bat we establish that Alex’s life is far from perfect. He's unemployed, separated from his wife and their two children. It’s understandable that Alex drowns out his pain with alcohol. Meg on the other hand is doing well for herself. She is constantly busy with her work, a center motif plays out with her Blackberry keep getting in the way of the pair interacting with each other. This adds substance to what already on paper is a futile relationship between the two of them. The Don’t Look Now style approach to the opening movement of this film is refreshing as it takes a real nice slow pace to create the foundations of what is getting set up.

The moment the pair get to the countryside we get visual nods to 28 Days Later, an almost desolate area with small indications that an zombie outbreak has happened, which of course the couple are totally oblivious too. A genuinely funny moment then plays out in the house upon their arrival. Playing on the well trodden cliches of the genre, rather than a flesh eating zombie ready to pounce out at them, a small little dog makes Alex once again look the weaker of the two. There is no denying that the relationship scenes are what makes the first half enjoyable. The chemistry between Blunt and Mitchell is great. You would expect that from a real life couple naturally. It almost feels like it could be drawn from their own relationship how these scenes play out.

Sadly all the great work that is established in the first 30 minutes goes right out the window as soon as the zombies appear. The film loses total direction very quickly. Before Dawn’s budget also becomes widely apparent of their limitations. The make up looks unconvincing, the character’s motivations become confusing, particularly when at several key moments in the film where the pair should get up and go, instead for totally baffling reasons they stay in the house, purely because the film’s budget dictates it to do so.

Dominic Blunt’s decision also to act, direct and edit is one that sadly destroy’s the film. The editing in the film is one of it’s major downfalls. There are dialogue syncing issues, sound effects such as blizzard winds are used over images with no wind present at all. Another problem is the choice of soundtrack. It’s honking ‘DA DA’ realization moments are overused and remove any settity to the piece whilst also adding jarring music cues that do not fit in the context of the film. One of the worst scenes takes place in the garage, it strongly suffers on both acting and editing. The scene is far too long and should have been scrapped completely as it does nothing to advance the plot. It’s meant to show Alex having to turn monstrous to protect himself but becomes as funny as anything in ‘The Room’. It stops, starts then begins again for no reason other than to be filler for the lack of material on display. The abrasive and frankly annoying music which is over used in this scene is not only overkill but also distracting. It also has the worst zombie acting which pales in comparison to what you would find in porn parodies of iconic films.

Metrodome, the film’s distributor tries selling this movie as a slaughter fest, in the vein of say ‘The Evil Dead’ or ‘Braindead’. Naturally if you are going in expecting this you will be incredibly disappointed. There is little to no gore on display here and to be honest this is not what the film is setting out to do. It’s attempting to be a serious, post apocalyptic character study which connects with the audience on an emotional level through the relationship of the couple. I regretfully have to say, in my opinion, this fails on all levels.

When ‘Before Dawn’ reaches it’s most crucial point, where we as an audience are meant to invest with Alex when his wife turns into a zombie, the film falls utterly flat. I do not for a second buy the acting from either of the couple, particularly that of Brunt, who frankly turns everything into an unintentional joke. He would be devastated and almost suicidal to think the love of his life has turned into an animal. Annoyingly once his wife is locked in a cellar ala ‘Evil Dead’, the biggest piece of filler comes to fruition by the appearance of Nicky Evans (from Shameless). This character merely serves as exposition of what has happened to the world. In one of the most ridiculous revelations in zombie history: Once someone infected has eaten they will not attack again and magically transform back to being normal. Maybe I misunderstood this but if this is the case and I am sure that my analysis of the film is correct, this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen.

After all the nonsense that occurs near the climax, there is one beautifully haunting moment when Alex is on the phone to one of his children. It in fact goes to show that with a revision of the script and another editor working on this, the film could have been something memorable and thought provoking. Sadly in it’s current state it’s an utter mess. Before Dawn can also serve as to what is wrong with low budget filmmaking around the world. Little White Lies comments that the cinematography is nothing short of amazing, I have to be brutally honest when I say this:

Coming from a low budget, independent filmmaking background, more times than often films are made for virtually nothing. I have worked on four projects now with DSLR’s, the results naturally vary. It takes a great DOP to get the best from these cameras. Naturally we are over-saturated with films being shot with DSLR’s at present as they are cheap, effective and can make a film truly cinematic, with the help of the right lenses and person behind the camera. Sadly more often than enough on this film, the shots are over exposed and sadly make things clear that they were shot on this camera. For you as an audience member to invest in a film you cannot be analyzing production design, watching for editing mistakes, make up etc as it proves you are not connected with the film you are watching. Sadly I am instantly drawn out of Before Dawn as well because of this. This could be because I am a filmmaker but I imagine that cinephiles or your average film goer would notice this too.