The Living and the Dead (2006)

Director:

Simon Rumley

Writer:

Simon Rumley (writer)

Release Date:

24 October 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Terror by good intentions.

Plot:

A descent into Hell is triggered when "Ex-Lord" Donald Brocklebank finds that he must leave Longleigh...

Plot Keywords:

Oedipus Complex | Psycho Pharmaceuticals | Fast Motion Sequence | Loss Of Son | Flash Forward

Awards:

6 wins

Cast

Roger Lloyd-Pack	...	Donald Brocklebank
Leo Bill	...	James Brocklebank
Kate Fahy	...	Nancy Brocklebank
Sarah Ball	...	Nurse Mary
Neil Conrich	...	Policeman

Also Known As:

The Living in the Home of the Dead (UK) (working title)

Runtime:

Argentina:83 min | Germany:83 min (European Film Market)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

UK:18 | Finland:K-15 | Germany:16 | Argentina:13 | Australia:MA (2008)

Filming Locations:

England, UK

Company:

Giant Films

Trivia:

The film is dedicated to the memory of Sheila and David Rumley.

Quotes:

James: When you leave, I'm the one to look after our house, I'm the one to look after Mummy.

Pointless

'The Living and the Dead' portrays the lives of a British noble, his wife and their adult son set in a spectacular country estate. The good days are long past. The estate is in disrepair and at risk of forfeiture, the wife bedridden most of the film and the son clinically psychotic. That sums up the bulk of what can be said with relative certainty about the plot.

The rest is a tumbling mash of conflicting alternate realities, displaced time-lines, hallucinatory visions and fast motion. Director/writer/producer Simon Rumley loves the fast motion. Leo Bill as the son spends much of the film at ten-fold speed, racing through vast expanses of interior, arms and face animated in a failed attempt to impart the viewer his perspective. It doesn't work, quickly growing tiresome and obvious. Rumley's so committed to the technique that clouds, the advancing sun, branches, vehicles, doctors and nurses eventually join the fray. Repeatedly. It's difficult to comprehend why since it has no bearing on the quiet desperation Rumley's grasping at, instead evoking the feel of an Eighties music video or a VW commercial.

It's symptomatic of the film's jettisoning coherency for atmosphere. The first half contradicts the back with no hint of resolution offered. The son proves more criminally insane than clinically yet no reason offered why he wasn't institutionalized. Early in the film when still portrayed as a happy idiot the father is constantly abusive and stern. Fatherly warmth doesn't appear until unconscionable acts are committed. The son roams free past the point any modern Western nation would have seen him incarcerated. We never know why. Likewise the rest of the plot is so artificial and bent to the requirements of intense moments all believability is lost and with it any concern for the characters. The one bright spot is Kate Fahy's terrific portrayal of the wife. She creates the few and fleeting scenes in which the film works as intended. Not content with these minor successes Rumley brushes them aside to make room for more mind-bending plot twists, snatching total failure from the jaws of mediocre success. A movie for the patient only.