Not Dead Enough (2005) Online

Story Synopsis: New Year's Day, 1983. John Silva, an escaped convict, returns to his house & kills his cheating wife & her lover in a fit of rage. He then attempts to kill his baby daughter but commits suicide instead. Twenty years later, Irene Frederick moves into the house, unaware of its history. Within no time at all, John Silva's angry ghost, still incensed over his wife's betrayal, launches a mind-numbing assault on Irene's senses.

Film Analysis: A few years before Oren Peli rocketed to fame with his lo-fi ghost story PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, Ray Ragenious, a budding filmmaker, decided to try his luck at making a low-budget horror film. He got a camera, roped in a few friends & made Not Dead Enough.

Not Dead Enough is best described as a cheapjack ghost story that has a narrative similarity to two classic genre films – Robert Wise's haunted house classic THE HAUNTING & John Carpenter's seminal slasher classic HALLOWEEN. The film's story is a combination of those two films' basic plot lines – Not Dead Enough has a woman who moves into a haunted house, only to be terrorised by something that was once human but isn't anymore.

As far as horror films go, Not Dead Enough is both impressive & disappointing. Ragenious, stuck with almost no budget, makes the most of not much, using his skills to make an exercise in sustained suspense & old school visual effects. With the exception of the dirt cheap credits sequence, the film could easily pass as a minor B-film.

Wherein lies the problem – Not Dead Enough is so cheaply made that it lacks the necessary polish needed to make it watchable. As it stands, the film is quite rough – with the exception of the visual effects (which are competently made), the film is extremely slow going, with a pedestrian pace & indifferent plotting by Ragenious.

The film also suffers from a lack of menace. Ragenious puts star Irene Frederick (playing herself) through the ringer in terms of fear, but never puts her in any real danger. The majority of the ghost's attacks consist of psychic visions & hallucinations. The only time it gets threatening is when Irene wakes up with the ghost trying to suffocate her in plastic, although the plastic can easily be overcome. The ghost also does a lot of taunting that resembles annoying behaviour – smashing Irene's food when she is not looking; giving her psychically-induced headaches; spelling out insults using knives (I personally find it hard to believe that a middle-aged woman has more than thirty butcher knives in her house at any one time – what does this woman do for a job? Moonlighting as a serial killer?). The part where Irene turns to Tarot cards in order to find the ghost's intentions is quite lame, not to mention being implausible.

When it comes to exposition, Ragenious tries a unique approach – he feeds Irene (& us for that matter) second-hand information. We have the house's former owner pulling up in his car when Irene is doing yard work, telling her about the weird stuff happening there & the cop who worked the murder case visiting Irene at night in order to check on her wellbeing, informing her about the house's violent history. The only time we see the origins of the disturbance is by an insufficient prologue that relies too heavily on suggestion. The climax, where the ghost faces his adult daughter, causing him to cross over for good, is decidedly anticlimactic.

The special effects are poor and basic quality very low.

The woman who plays the lead role has one expression and even gets that wrong most of the time.

No real context for her skills or later the daughters skills to determine the evil one and to be able to contact him.

The last part of the film replays whole scenes - maybe to get a more suitable length - this was strange out of place and a very poor editing effort.

The cover art doesn't come close to anything in the film and most of the time you just hope that the ghost will just kill them.

Poor effort passed off as something its not on the DVD shelf

If you miss your grandmother walking around in a housecoat this is definitely the movie for you ......otherwise DON'T BOTHER!!

To be honest the manner in which this film is shot reminds me of being in drama class in high school.

For the majority of the movie they could've incorporated a narrator or even a host to give some form of intrigue as to what's supposed to be going on ......something anything to get one to actually want to pay attention to the movie.

Special "effects" any 8 year old can manage on an old computer.

Script....totally non existent and Very poorly delivered as well.

The cover shown has absolutely NOTHING to do with the movie at all.

I don't recall any elderly people owning as many knives as this woman does.....much less ever seeing women cook meat in a skillet using the forked end of a kitchen knife to turn the meat over in my life.....maybe a redneck guy with a beer in one hand who happens to be an eternal bachelor but not a grandmotherly type.

Basic props and home items do not fit the genre. It's fairly obvious the set crew went to a thrift store and just grabbed anything,placing it in the set with no consideration to appearance.

And WHY is this poor older woman ALWAYS in her housecoat?

Did I mention the lack of script? Oh..wait there is the conversation through the tarot cards.....~heavy sigh~

Honestly I have acquaintances and friends who shoot "B movies" with great scripts, story lines and awesome sets on next to no budget. This seriously can't even be categorized in a b movie level and I'm pretty sure would grant a heavy F in drama class.....