This release comes as either a DVD, Blu Ray, and I think streamed. We where sent the DVD for our review, and as we’ve come to expect from Arrow Video we get a good print & a bumper selection of extras.
 
The Dead Center was written, directed and produced by Billy Senese- it’s his second feature-length film after Close To God- a 2014 sci-fi horror film about cloning. And there’s no doubt that The Dead Center is a well filmed, edited, and well made film- I just felt, sadly both atmosphere & pacing were somewhat lacking.
 
The film focuses in on overworked, caring yet troubled hospital psychiatrists Daniel Forrester( Shane Carruth).One day the body of a man turns up in the hospital morgue, and it’s seemingly a bizarre suicide- in due course the man comes round, and in the hospital bed shuffle he lands up in Dr. Forrester dept as he’s seemingly Amnesiac. Fairly soon staff & patients in the secure unit start dying-with seemingly their life force sucked out of them- and it’s up to Forrester to prove that it’s the once dead man who is to blame- before he loses his job, sanity & possibly his own life.
 
As you’d imagine/ expect with a mainly hospital-based film that’s in the horror genre- we get lots of brooding shots of corridors, creepingly unhinged patients, and shadowy rooms. We also get quite a few moody overhead shots of vehicles travelling through starkly lit cityscapes. The whole thing is acted in a believable and at times gritty manner, with the film brought together in a balanced & professional manner. So in theory, and on paper, it should work- but sadly I felt it wholly lacked the needed feeling of pressing dread, tension & general unease- and at times it felt like a bad X File episode, without Mulder & Scully. I wouldn’t bracket this in with Post-Horror, as yes there are traditional horror tropes present here, and the film only plays for just over an hour and a half- but boy did it still seem to often drag, and at times move into all-out boredom. I really, really wanted to like The Dead Center after Arrow Video putting it out, and the promising trailer- but I’m afraid to say it mostly fell completely flat for me, as either a low-key horror or creepy medical drama.
 
 
As we’ve come to expect from Arrow we get a good & bumper crop of extras. First off we get two separate commentary tracks- first is from the writer/ director and a few cast members. And the second is from writer/ director, two of the film's producers, and cinematographer. Next, we get a thirty-eight minute featurette- bringing together revisiting locations & interviews with the director, cast and crew- and among other things, we find out that Senese took the real-life loss of a friend to mental health & drug use, as an influence in the films story. We get a selection of nine deleted scenes including an alternative ending. There's a selection of on-set interviews, a look at the film's effects. And we get two of Senese early short films- there’s 2011’s Intruder, which finds a young woman, her wheelchair-bound partner, and their child been bothered by a neighbour in their glum & shadowy apartment. And 2010’s The Suicide Tapes- which is somewhat of a grainy black & white found-footage take on the themes in The Dead Center. Both films have the grim & woozy feel of The Dead Centre, so Senese certainly gives his own distinct feel to his work. Both of these shorter film run around the twenty-minute mark, and are ok I guess, but once again even with their short runtime- everything feels a little plodding/ dragging.
 
I’m sure that The Dead Center will find it’s an audience- as it’s certainly a well made, acted and conceived film, which dwells in a fairly distinctive feeling of bleak & stark dread. It just did little or nothing for myself, hence the low mark- but as I say it could well click with you & entrance you with its very subtle unease & extreme slow build.