Saw this when it was released and I didn't think all that much of it. Thought it was quite poor. I hadn't seen it since, until now and I didn't find it as bad as I last remembered. However there are no pretensions that it's your typical run-of-the-mill, forgettable little post-scream British horror flick outing. Almost like a dark supernatural slasher, as a evil entity (Djinn - fire spirit) possesses a human body and goes about killing the college friends who were involved in summoning it through a Ouija board. That who it possess is kept hidden until the film's climax, as red herrings are thrown up and back-stories are revealed. The main problem I had with it were the characters themselves
quite an unlikeable, bland and indistinguishable bunch of players. Surprisingly the ones which might have seem important in some shape to carry it (the few sympathetic turns with some sensibility) were killed off early and this actually made it unpredictable it what order they would dwindle down to. The typical traits are there; false build ups, reckless decisions, surprising revelations to keep the story moving, roaming shadows, distracting noises, characters finding out the truth to only be killed, ghastly shocks with flowing blood, the killer POV shots and a cheap lasting jolt to close up shop. Director / co-writer Marcus Adams' escalates some suspenseful frights and paces it well enough, but still its slick and flashy techniques are systematically vanilla. Special effects are efficient (sped up visuals and CGI) and the simmering score heightens the danger with its heart-racing cues. The performances are okay focusing on a hip young British cast (Hass' the exception) with the ladies (Marsha Thomason, Lara Bellmount and Melanie Gutteridge) standing head over heals over the boys (Lukas Hass, Ale Newman, Joe Absolom, James Hillier and Mel Raido).
Review of Long Time Dead
