Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Bloodwank Stephen Lesse is a man with dark troubles. A noted horror author and screenwriter, he finds himself hating his work, trying to come up with something more worthy whilst grappling with writers block, a grasping producer and shrill lush of a wife. Something's got to give, and give it does…Deadline sets its stall early on, strained family breakfast giving way to bloody fantasy, and the film sticks to this template, spiralling dysfunction shot through with grisly gore (we're talking some good gross blood and guts stuff here) from the imagination of our protagonist. Its oppressive, truly "feel-bad" stuff, mostly because almost every character is selfish and deeply flawed, but also in the dim view cast on the very genre and mindset of horror, something guaranteed to unsettle and even irritate fans. Sturdy performances keep a tight grip on the audience, there is something of the TV film about the acting, but in the best sort of way, dead serious and committed. Stephen Young essays convincing inner turmoil roiling inside a bitter and hard to like man, Sharon Masters excels at the edge of collapse as his wife, whilst Marvin Golhar brings bleakly amusing oily cynicism as Lesse's producer. Deadline isn't all about dark drama though, it's one of the few films of its time that unsettles by force of its nastiness rather than just atmosphere and anticipation. Few movies I have come across evoke so nicely at times the unhinged feel of the grimier end of pulp horror fiction, the slimy levels from which one can look up and consider the likes of Stephen King novels paragons of literary and moral virtue. Now clichéd ideas worked around nuns, children and at one point a goat are mined for maximum grim effect and the key notion of one of Lesse's novels that gets the film moving into its darkest realms is a concept both truly grotesque (disturbingly so) and somewhat pointless. Which I guess is sort of the point that the film appears to be making on the horror genre, that it's a breeding ground for mindlessly horrifying images that do nothing but corrupt. Its not a view I agree with in anyway and I may be overstating the films intentions (it is a bit muddled), but the abrasive nature of it gives it an uncommon kick. Apart from the moral dimension, the film is interesting just for its look at the breakdown of an artist and the assorted pressures and compromises faced, something that may well have been personal to writer/director Mario Azzopardi. A leading light of cinema and theatre in his native Malta, Deadline was his first English language production, made in Canada with the help of tax shelter for film-makers. It is therefore low budget, and the gorier scenes may well have been added at the behest of the producers (one of them really does jar, you'll see which one), making Deadline a film that appears to reference its own reality in fairly caustic fashion. Apart from his decent handling of the actors and darkly interesting writing Azzopardi has a sure handling of things throughout, suitably suspenseful or intense when needed. Particularly fine is a finale of inspired delirium, very impressive stuff. The film could have done with a shade more coherency and tighter development of its characters and themes, it also misses a trick in not connecting characters and themes closer to its gore sequences. Things are a tad messy then and depressing too, I perhaps could have done with more shading to the characters, perhaps even a little relief? Still, this is rather an ace work on the whole and richly recommended.

jonathan-577 Well, Godard said that the proper review of a movie is another movie, and at times this reads like a feature-length adaptation of the Marshall Delaney writeup that got Cronenberg kicked out of his apartment. (It even borrows Cindy Hinds from The Brood.) The setup is transparent: Azzopardi, an acclaimed Maltese theater director, finds himself making films in Canada at the height of the crassness boom. So he makes a movie about a slumming intellectual who writes horror films, ba-dumb-bum. It's a bit of a Frederic Wertham job, that's for sure, it unconditionally posits a cause-effect relationship between on-screen violence and the seduction of the innocents. But it works OK if you don't approach it as an absolute moral judgment, but as a fascinating expression of the frustrations felt by artists working in this economic environment: many of them would really rather have been doing something else, and this fact rarely works in a positive way like it does here. And it also partially redeems another Canuck kiss of death, the movie where absolutely every character is a hateful snot. The redemption isn't in the hazy morality, but in the cinematic sense: the insightful but subtle camera placements, the clever use of montage, and the powerful surreal imagery at the end. Also, you can't accuse it of being humorless when the first diagetic film clip we see is of a murderous snowblower manipulated by a psychic sheep! If it weren't so flawed, it probably wouldn't be as interesting.

BronsonFan This is perhaps my favorite horror film of all time, the relentless gloom and the downward sparrow of all the characters lives within it. Leave you the viewer feeling exhausted , this strain on your emotions leave you feeling venerable. Through out this we are exposed to a fair amount of random violence. The main character Steven Lessey who is a successful writer that makes his living off writing horror novels , that have good fortune in Hollywood. One occasion shows him doing a questions and answer's at a university , upon showing a clip for his new film , after the audience witness the morbid acts of some of his art. They use it against him, pointing there fingers and asking him how dare he create this senseless violence. Steven tries to justify the metaphors that are the under layer of his work, but as the audience pounces more on him, we witness he has no solid answer's.It is soon after this, that his art starts to invade his daily life. Being frustrated and under pressure, he takes on a change . One that creates a big weight for all those around him. The children are caught in the middle of all this, and it is very interesting in there part of Steven's fall into the gutter.I feel that there is so much more I could say about this film, but at the same time , I would risk the chance of giving those who have not viewed it spoilers. So I would rather comment on your need to view this film, if you haven't because it truly is one of the best horror films that I have ever seen. It takes you for a ride and it grips hard the whole time.

tutbagsusa Horror movies that reference their own genre have been more prevalent lately, but it seems they come attached with a certain degree of mordant comedy, signifying that the directors probably aren't completely convinced of their own convictions. But that's not really a problem with this film. DEADLINE is a horror picture that begins like any typical slasher film would, but later becomes more laid back in an effort to reflect on itself from an idealistic point of view. The film chiefly appears to be another examination of the effects of graphic violence in cinema on its viewers, particularly child viewers. The narrative framework for all this is built upon the story of a horror movie screenwriter whose life begins to disintegrate when he begins writing for more violent and more lowbrow productions than he'd prefer. As to be expected, it eventually leads to a collapse of his sanity.I liked the film for its first two-thirds because director Azzapardi was trying to do something different and even attempting a resonant observation or two along the way. But like so many of these self-referential type films, it paints itself into a corner in the end to where it doesn't really have an ending. It rather just trails off in the final minutes, not knowing how to tie its various story threads. Nonetheless, its worth a look since much of it does hold some promise, at least before the third act.