Director – Dawid Torrone (Opowie Ci o Zbrodni)
Starring – Sylwia Boron (Bloody Date, Hold Tight), Monika Frajczyk (Leave No Traces, Green Border), and Adam Machalica (Planet Single, Raspberries)
Release Date – 2025
Rating – 2/5
I never know what to expect when I check my Horror Society email. Am I going to get an email from a fan confused by what we do at Horror Society asking if they can get a role in a film? Is it going to be a random actress asking for us to share their OnlyFans link? Or, is it going to be a press release for a movie that I really want to see? My emails can be pretty weird especially when I get the random off the wall emails from people that shouldn’t have access to the internet. However, I sometimes get emails to check out a movie that has really peaked my interest.
A few weeks back I received the press release for Polland’s first giallo, Dead by Dawn. The title, which also shares a name with the alternate title for Evil Dead II, really caught my eye with it’s artwork. I replied to the email and they were kind enough to send a link over for me to check.
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a group of aspiring stage actors who visit an old theater that was once considered prestigious. What they don’t know is that a masked maniac is stalking the property killing everyone that is unfortunate enough to cross paths with them. **Spoiler Alert**
I went into Dead by Dawn excited to see a stylish and beautifully shot giallo but what I found was an extremely slow paced slasher with a lot of scenes that need trimmed down. I seriously wanted to like this one but it wasn’t meant to be. It was painfully slow, uninteresting, and the slasher was very disappointing.
The acting in this one is easily one of the only redeeming qualities I could find in the film. The characters are fairly forgettable and we don’t have any outstanding performances but I liked the cast. They really get into their roles and work well with each other.
The story for this one has an interesting premise but fails to put it all together into something truly enjoyable. The film uses long, drawn out scenes with beautiful cinematography and locations to try to capture that giallo feel but it doesn’t really give viewers the Italian mystery feel. The movie is a slasher for the most part with an occult angle that is never fully explored as much as I would have liked. I wish this was introduced earlier in the film and the mystery portion of the story played a bigger role. Instead, we have a slasher flick that just doesn’t have the fun that many slashers before it was able to deliver.
Finally, the kills offer up a lot of blood but they don’t have the best practical effects or imagination. The masked killer’s weapon of choice is a meat cleaver but the deaths are unable to deliver on the imagination and originality that other meat cleaver killers, like 100 Tear, did before it. Also, the killer’s mask is pretty lame. It’s a mask covered in bright white eyes that does nothing for the scene. Overall, Dead by Dawn just wasn’t as fun as I had hoped it was. It doesn’t feel like a giallo. Instead, it’s a standard slasher where the killer has a stupid mask. I want to recommend this one but I can’t. Skip it.
