MovieChat Forums > A Brush with Death (2007) Discussion > You really can't expect much from a B-Ho...

You really can't expect much from a B-Horror movie.

posted 12 years ago by Noxtan1324
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You really can't, whether it's backed by a major film company or done independently. They're very cheaply made with very simple special effects and have a amateurish cast. A Brush With Death is a case in point. Whether you hate the movie or not, it is what it is: a very low budget, independent B-horror movie. You got to take these movies with just a grain of salt.

Now I'm a horror movie fan, a movie buff, and have taken some film classes. I didn't find the movie all that bad. The flashback scenes to 1954 and 1955 are done quite well. The atmosphere of those flashback scenes are quite moody and slightly dark in tone. I really like how the those scenes are borderlining in being in black and white. One of the critics' reviews I read wrote that the movie's backstory could be an interesting and quite a good movie in and of itself. I'd have to agree.

The whole flow of the movie with going from present day to the flashback scenes to the one dream sequence, I can understand why a lot of people don't like this movie because the flow or the editing is very rocky. The one issue I really have with the movie is the sound, the ADR dialogue in particular. ADR is short for Automated Dialogue Replacement, or Additional Dialogue Recording and is done in post-production. I was watching this movie late at night with headphones on so I could really tell when the ADR came in. It is definitely jarring to the ear to hear dialogue going from being recorded onset to being recorded in an ADR room.

Now I know a lot of horror fans, especially with today's horror movies, want the blood and gore to be very prominent in the movie and want to see, say, the blunt or sharp weapon come into contact with its target. A Brush With Death has very little blood and really no gore. Each horror director is different.

As for seeing the visceral image of an axe to the head and seeing the blood just gush... well, there's this saying with movies in general: "Less is more." Let me give you a scenario: there's just a shot of the axe and it goes out of frame and the scene cuts there and goes on to the next scene of a couple getting it on. That's an example of "less is more." It gives the viewer the opportunity to imagine in his own mind what the death would have looked like. Imagination is a great tool to use to keep your mind healthy. For me, I like variety. I like seeing both the visceral image and seeing the "less is more" route.

Getting back to A Brush With Death, I really enjoyed the movie. I was fully engrossed from start to finish. The performances were very typical of a B-horror movie: campy. Although not all of the performances were campy. Max Taylor's performance as Caleb (the stutterer) I thought was quite good. He made Caleb a very sympathetic character and likeable. I honestly felt bad for Caleb. He was obviously being abused and mistreated. The only character I thought was a throwaway-kind-of character was Walter the perverted and lecherous mechanic. He's set-up as the villain of the story, but we only really see him for the first half-hour of the movie. Now I love misdirection in a movie as much as the next person, but the execution of the misdirection isn't perfect, to put it kindly. Walter is like a... side-villain and gets one-upped by the main villain.

One thing I got to give props for is the lead up to main villain by the use of the flashback scenes from 1954 and 1955. That's what those flashback scenes were really doing. They were slowly showing us innocence becoming perverted. When I think about it, Ronnie (the younger brother) is a tragic character. I know what you're thinking: "the main villain being a tragic character?" He is, though. Being used and manipulated by his older brother for just so long eventually made Ronnie snap. That just exudes a definition of a tragic character.

Having seen this just once, I understood this movie completely despite the flow of it. I'd say give this movie a second chance. It really isn't all that bad. You just might understand the story and a couple of the characters more from multiple viewings.

P.S. I'm so sorry for such a long post, but there was a LOT I wanted to say. And I hope I cleared up a couple of things in the process for you guys.

I absolutely adore movies. Even bad ones. A good, bad movie you must admit is great. -Roddy McDowall

[–] Wuchak (8110) 6 years ago

Whether you hate the movie or not, it is what it is: a very low budget, independent B-horror movie.

But this isn't a B-Horror movie, it's Grade C all the way, and a poor one at that. "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) and "Dire Wolf" aka "Dinowolf" (2009) are B-Horror movies and they deliver the goods well for the genre. "A Brush with Death" is thoroughly amateurish by comparison. It had a budget of $200,000, but can't even compete with movies that cost significantly less, like "Another Kind" (2013), which only cost $120,000, but is so well done it could easily pass for a modest-budget theatrical release.

"A Brush with Death" features barely enough filmmaking talent so that the story moderately kept my attention for the first 50 minutes or so; plus there are some quality visuals, like the dilapidated house at night, and a few of the actors aren't bad (like the mentally challenged guy, as you point out); moreover, a few of the girls are decent: Ali Thurlow as Candice, Nikki Cordell as Hillary and Seanna McDonald as Amber. Blonde Candice is easily the most beautiful, but she’s inexplicably gone by the 25-minute mark.

Unfortunately, the script was really lame in parts and it clearly needed more time to work out the kinks and flush out its potential, like George Romero did with "Night of the Living Dead” (1968). But it was obviously rushed and this shows in the finished product. The flick should have never been released to video because it's that poor of a Grade C “film.”