Search - Dread on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 2/13/2023...

Had some pretty creepy terror moments!

Nikki H. (Tinyavenger)
Reviewed on 4/8/2011...

Dread was a surprising watch for me. The acting was well done with a brilliant performance turned in by Shaun Evans. Great psychological thriller with some cringe-worthy scenes. My only wish is that the movie would have been a bit longer.

2 of 2 member(s) found this review helpful.

DREAD: Horror of a different kind

Brian D. Ahern | West Michigan, USA | 10/04/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"You can see many differing opinions of this feature on the Amazon review page. Indeed, the movie DREAD does lack the sophistication of other contemporary chillers like SAW, and the actors will never walk away with an Oscar. But that's not the point I got from this movie.



The story revolves around a trio of college students pursuing a thesis project on a study of fear. One of the group is already emotionally damaged, having seen his parents brutally murdered when he was young. He is plagued by nightmares that drive his interest in his friends' academic endeavor.



Unlike films like HELLRAISER (a celebrated Clive Baker feature), which tend to get so caught up in their own gross-out factor of ghouls bearing meat hooks, nails, and other pointy things that they bore me to tears, the threat in this film is frighteningly real. It is a twisted look at what can happen when someone becomes so immersed in academia that he loses touch with reality.



I find that most college studies tend to have no more merit than some tangible proof that their donated funds have been put to use. College Psychology studies have a very bad history of digging deep into people's psyches--often to terrible effect--providing no more worthwhile result than a documentation that messing with people's heads can be detrimental to the subject's health. It also tends to inflate the organizer's ego and a tendency toward power trips.



Here we have an already unbalanced student, disturbed and distracted by his personal horror, becoming dangerously obsessed with the study, to the point of flying into a violent rage when it is referred to as nothing more than a "class project".



The end result is chilling and unnerving, as the obsessed student spirals into depraved psychosis, advancing his study of fear into its application, to the point of torture and worse.



No, DREAD will never be put alongside the most famous horror films of our day, but it drives home with frightening clarity that the worst monster is not a vampire or a zombie. The worst monster is all too often man.

"