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Cast: Brian Sutherland, Meagan Karimi-Naser, Jeffrey Arrington, Aurelio Voltaire, Michael Joseph Draper
In DEAD WEST, a charismatic outlaw sets out on a murderous cross-country trip searching for true love. Each time he thinks he has found “the one," he ends up disappointed - and she ends up dead. Managing to elude capture by traveling from one town to the next, his luck runs out when Tony (Arrington), the brother of one of his victims, tracks him down. Suddenly the hunter becomes the hunted as Tony seeks vengeance by enforcing his own brand of vigilante justice.
"Dead West" tells the tale of a charismatic serial killer who embarks on a cross-country road trip in search of that one true love but so far he has had no luck. That doesn't mean he hasn't met women along the way, in fact he has met several of them but none of them have fit the bill and they all have ended up dead. When he kills a young lady, he meets in a bar her brother decides to head out and stop the drifter's murderous way once and for all.
"Dead West" definitely offers up an original take on serial killer movies. It is basically about a killer looking for love. It does sound like an interesting idea of paper but it just wasn't executed as well on film. Let me talk about the film's good stuff first. The first thing I noticed was how well the film looked and the sound was just as impressive. Secondly, The acting was very good for the most part, Brian Sutherland was very good as the killer, he had a charismatic charm to go with his mean streak. Jeffrey Arrington was very good as well as the brother looking to get revenge for his sister's murder. A number of other actors did a good job as well including, Katie Michels and Carollani Sandberg.
Now on the a few things I thought could have been a lot better. The film is slow which is not a bad thing but I did think the run time was too long. The film could have easily been trimmed by almost a half hour to make it flow better. Secondly, all the killings were off screen which for me was a downer. With a dialogue and character driven film like this it could have used a bit of blood to go along with the killings to spice things up a bit. And finally and probably the one thing that let the movie down the most for me was the revenge theme which is really advertised on the DVD cover. There was no revenge at all, you sit there waiting for this big showdown between the two characters and when the time arrives nothing exciting really happens and the killer is once again on his way looking for his one true love for the rest of the movie. I am not going to go into any major details about the plot so not to ruin the film for those that still want to see it but I myself found it to be a let down. I am not sure if the film maker wanted the revenge aspect to be front and center or if it was the studio's idea to do so but either way I think it was a mistake. I am not sure how you market it otherwise but a lot of people are going to be disappointed in the movie if they can sit through it to the end. My rating of the film reflects the good acting and dialogue which was excellent as well.
"Dead West is available on DVD Feb. 7, 2017, you can order it HERE. Credit goes to Writer/Director, Jeff Ferrell for coming up with some new ideas I just which it was executed better.
** Out Of *****