SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

craigjpay-146-379244 Nothing like going into something blind and having it blow your socks off. This is some emotionally brutal stuff, the last film to kick me in guts like this was Session 9 (which this shares some DNA with, along with The Babadook, The Shining and, peculiarly, Withnail & I). Leo Bill's performance seemed a little too mannered at first, but I bought into it after a little while, from there on in it felt devastatingly authentic. Bleak as it undoubtedly is, director Simon Rumley balances tragedy and comedy so perfectly that it often blurs the line between the two, had he not nailed that balancing act so completely, I might not have got through the brisk 79 minute running time without wanting to go outside and lay down in the road. Really, really excellent stuff, going to have to give Rumley's follow up Red, White and Blue a look now.

walter radunsky Simon Rumley's "The Living and the Dead" is the kind of film I would not have expected to come out in 2006. While a drama at its core, the movie is constructed of so many other narrative and cinematic nuances and is so possessed by a kind of punk spirit that it looks and feels like it could have been one of the unclassifiable classics of the 1970s. Although only a few final episodes in the life of an aristocratic English family with a mentally ill son are illustrated, these scenes are enough through which to surrealistically distill the gradual and eventual disintegration of their lives into madness and tragedy. This portrayal of tragedy is one of the characteristics that particularly makes this film so interesting. That's not to say that there is not also the element of comedy in this film. The son's character is one that many would consider humorous, at least from a distance. But Rumley takes us deep enough into the life of the son--his private words and behavior, his relationship with his parents, his drug usage, even his dreams--until our laughter is long left behind for more serious thoughts of sympathy and fear. It is as easy to emotionally respond to this film as it is to think about it on an intellectual level, as the simple yet sophisticated dialogue is brilliantly executed and perfectly compliments the literary screenplay, professional directing, artful cinematography, and everything else that makes this film as worthy of viewing as many of the unique favorites of the past.

BA_Harrison I blind bought this mistakenly thinking it was some kind of zombie flick (put the words 'living' and 'dead' in a film's title and I automatically think of zombies), but I couldn't have been more wrong. The Living and the Dead actually deals with the all-too-real horrors of schizophrenia, and the terrible impact that such a condition can have on a family.Roger Lloyd-Pack plays Lord Donald Brocklebank (not 'bottlebank', as I first thought), financially challenged owner of a run-down stately home, father of grown-up schizophrenic son James (Leo Bill), and husband to critically ill, bed-ridden Nancy (Kate Fahy). When Donald leaves the family home for a few days to sort out finances, James—keen to show his father how capable he can be—takes it upon himself to look after his mother, barricading the house against her nurse.Of course, James proves to be a far from ideal carer, unable to adequately look after himself, let alone his mother; as time goes on, his schizophrenia goes from bad to worse, exacerbated by a careless approach to self-medication. Slowly, he becomes a danger to both himself and his mother.Although The Living and the Dead is far from what one would traditionally term as 'horror', trust me when I say that what writer/director Simon Rumley depicts in this film is terrifying. Watching a person gradually descend into a personal hell and turn against his mother is harrowing enough, but there is also the suffering endured by Nancy due to her own illness: in one memorably nasty moment, the poor woman suffers the humiliation of soiling her bed, being carried to the bathroom covered in her own crap, and stripped naked by her son. Another very unsettling scene shows James injecting himself with anti-psychotic drugs, jamming the needles into his arm, leaving them jutting from his skin, and then having a turn and knocking them sideways. Yowch!In a bold move by Rumley, the story then enters territory that REALLY messes with the mind: the visuals become totally chaotic and it becomes unclear as to what is reality and what is delusion. It also emerges that the story is being told using the 'unreliable narrator' style, coming from several viewpoints and casting doubt on the accuracy of all we have seen. This 'alternate perception' technique, which implies that Donald may be the one who is mentally ill, not his son, might lead to lots of confusion and uncertainty, but since we're dealing with the subject of schizophrenia, it seems an apt treatment.So... to summarise: no ambling undead, but plenty of ambiguity; no gut munching, but a visceral experience nonetheless; and no bullets to the brain, but enough emotionally distressing and downbeat content to scramble the viewer's mind for a while.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

petzoid On the Cover of the rental DVD it said that is was one of the best movie some movie critic had ever seen. I have to say that I love movies that contain a certain depth and make you think and the quotes on the cover promised just that. I actually had to start this movie twice because I stopped it at the first try after 15 minutes not being able to concentrate on the "storyline"(there actually is not really much of a storyline to begin with).What I am trying to get across is that this is just not a movie that captures you in the first couple of minutes and also this is definitely not a horror movie. The horror is supposedly rooted in the fact that there are two very sick people (one mentally and one physically) that are locked in together and try to care for each other.The deranged or mentally ill son might be portrayed in a realistic fashion but that does not make it less annoying to watch his character rummage through this movie. What I found most annoying is the overuse of fast paced pictures combined with nasty techno music. I do get it that this is meant to emphasize his progressing madness but I would say that the audience would have understood this without using this stylistic device 5 times in a row. Another maddening element are certain jumps in the time line that make it even harder to follow the already chaotic "storyline" I found also utterly unrealistic that a concerned father would leave his terminally ill wive and his deranged son who, as he notes earlier is "not very good with strange people".Altogether a very unpleasant movie not only because of its content but because it is very hard to follow and even harder to connect to any of the characters portrayed in it!