In Brini Amerigo’s movie, Dead House, a merciless and detestable trio of bad guys scour the streets of the affluent in search of money and a good time. Unfortunately, their idea of a good time usually involves sexual assault and humiliation for an entire family, before executing them all. This is a home invasion movie with a twist though because unbeknownst to the three, their latest victims are hiding a dark and disturbing secret in their basement.
Dead House is Brini Amerigo’s directorial debut. He shares the writing credits with Andrea Cavaletto and Marco Palese. The film starts with a harrowing scene where a couple is being forced to have sex at gunpoint in front of their daughter, the whole family are then executed. This introduces us to the terrible trio and sets the tone for the rest of the movie. They are merciless, perverted and cruel. There is a quick Segway to a scene of a woman in a white tiled cell being ripped apart and eaten by a couple of zombies. At this stage, we are not told where this is occurring, or why. We once again join the evil threesome as they eye up their next targets, that being the home of the Pontecorvo’s. A seemingly stereotypical white, middle-class household, living in the suburbs. The family settles down for a movie together when Nibbio (Danny Cutler) and his cohorts, Testamento (Alex Lucchesi, Eaters 2011) and Brett (Alex Southern) decide to ruin their evening. They force their way in and begin beating up on John and wife Elena as the children are forced to watch. This is then followed by a series of humiliating acts before Nibbio finally demands their money. Despite his protests, John leads the lead thug upstairs to empty his safe of its contents. When a mysterious noise is heard coming from the basement, John is reluctantly forced to unlock his laboratory, and this is where the real fun begins. The earlier Segway of a woman being eaten by zombies was actually in John’s basement. That’s right, mild-mannered suburbanite John, is actually a scientist experimenting on zombies, presumably trying to create a remedy. Suffice to say that Johns brain-hungry friends all escape and they don’t waste any time before biting chunks out of the family, the bad guys, and the local residents. By the time the armed forces arrive to neutralize the threat, it’s all too late. The end of the film is a montage of news reports and video footage of zombies running amok through the streets and the whole world in a state of panic.
The plot of Dead House is standard fare and was never going to set the horror community alight, and it lacks any real depth or believability, even for a zombie movie. However, I’m not saying that this is a bad movie because it isn’t. It’s quite good in my opinion. The bad guys are nasty and unlikeable. The good guys are vulnerable and fallible. The secret laboratory was somewhat of a stretch but forgivable. The zombies are appropriately gruesome and hungry. I think my issue is that the scope of the film is too much in too little a time frame. With more attention to detail and a beefier script this could have been so much more, but as it is we are just left with a snapshot of what could have been.
Cutler and Lucchesi put in utterly dislikeable performances, which is the least you can hope for villains. Brett’s character is far more complex and Southern tries to make him a compassionate bad guy, torn between his morals and weak constitution. However, in the end, it doesn’t stop him raping and murdering, which made him seem less than convincing and a weakly defined character. Doctor John is played by David White (The Reaping 2017) and his wife Elena by Kate Davies-Speak (Escape from Cannibal Farm 2017) and both put in good performances, however, Dead House’s shortfallings aren’t so much to do with the action in front of the camera. With maybe just that little bit more care in the execution of this film and a tighter plot, then Amerigo could have been on to a winner.
Watch Dead House now with Amazon Prime!
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