The Dead Thing (2024) by Elric Kane ***2024 Fantasia Festival***

Director: Elric Kane

Year: 2024

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Supernatural

Plot:

After a string of meaningless relationships, a woman meets up with a potentially perfect partner who seems right for her but mysteriously disappears sending her on a downward spiral trying to find him again, but when she does seem to find him and spark their romance finds his grisly secret.

Review:

This was a generally bland and not that interesting fringe genre effort. The central setup here involving the discovery of the guy she really likes and what happens when the date proves far more fulfilling than her random hookups and sets out to find what happened to him gives this a workable enough main starting point that could’ve done something for it’s stated premise exploring the dangers of modern dating. Given the change that emerges once the dates start to become sexual in nature, this comes off well enough as a whole which makes the desired connection with him worthwhile enough to showcase the series of changes that come following the revelations about their relationship. This is all fine enough and gives the film a decent premise.

The problem here is that it's simply a premise that works as everything else is completely bland and boring. The focus on this bizarre romantic drama about following the clues about his mysterious disappearance and using the social media apps to find him again and rekindle their relationship just takes any ounce of potential genre thrills completely out of this one to the point that it never feels anywhere close to this genre at all. It tries to rely on this twist in the final half hour to try to swing it’s way into the genre but it’s just not enough to care or be invested in the piece as a whole since there’s been nothing about it falling into the genre as we're never even told what the figure is so there’s no reason to care with nothing here being close to a genre effort at all.

Overview: 0.5/5

Fine for what it is but barely a horror film, there’s not a whole lot to be had with this one which is the main overarching factor here regardless of how good the main point here is. Those who are fine with its point and presentation will be the biggest fans of this one while those expecting more traditional genre fare might be excessively turned off here.