Review – Dread

Though I strongly suspected this would turn out to be yet another pathetic parade of torture, I was lured by the power of the first paragraph in the source story by Clive Barker. It’s strong stuff, almost as good as the opening to Lovecraft’s “Call of Cthulhu.” But the rest of the story is the tale of a psychotic grad student who likes to find ways to uncover people’s secret fears and use their phobias to torment them. So my guess about the content of a low-to-mid budget production based thereon was that it would be the umpty-millionth entry in the big catalog of torture porn. To be sure, it had that flavor. It also sported some dreadful filter work, ping-ponging back and forth between NIN video amber and Hollywood absinthe green. But it also included some minor character development and a plot twist or two. Mildly amusing