‘Dead By Dawn’ Review: Bloated Holiday Horror [SXSW London 2025]
No, Dawid Torrone’s Dead by Dawn, is not an Evil Dead spin-off bringing the deadites back to our screens. But, it is a Polish slasher film that had its World Premiere at London Premiere at SXSW London. Following a group of committed actors (Sylwia Boron, Adam Machalica, Lukasz Szczepanowski, and Paulina Zwierz) who descend on an empty theatre to rehearse the final play of an esteemed playwright, it’s not long before things start going violently wrong.
As the cast settles into their roles, it becomes clear that the play’s ritualistic concept is more than just for visual impact, and they may in fact be embarking on something sinister. Rehearsals are often interrupted by seizures, prophetic visions, or arguments between the cast, as the actors fail to notice that a masked killer (Bartlomiej Topa) has found his way into the theatre. It is here where Dead by Dawn stumbles, as what proceeds is a jumble of genres with little clarity.
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It can’t be argued that Dead by Dawn is spectacularly gory, delighting in the physical effects many blockbuster horrors have shunned in favour of CGI bloodshed. However, the most notable scenes of horrific violence aren’t its own. Torrone demonstrates his love of horror by paying tribute to the eye impaling in Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (1979), the controversial demonic tree possession scene in The Evil Dead (1981), and even the disturbed dance of Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria (2018). While these scenes are altered enough to be considered homages rather than outright copies, it’s akin to watching a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode (without the humor) and playing Guess the Reference.
That isn’t to say that Torrone’s debut feature doesn’t contain its own ideas. However, Dead by Dawn is so stuffed with intertitles, visions, strange scripts, ritualistic imagery, a possession, a deranged killer, and a supposedly haunted theatre that it becomes a horror turducken. This makes each scene dry and hard to swallow.
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It’s so full that you’d be forgiven for routinely forgetting Dead by Dawn is actually a Christmas horror movie, until someone runs past a decorated tree or a wall of fairy lights. Torrone’s error is not knowing what to savor, offering up morsels of strange events in the old theatre in throwaway conversations, such as the audience that all suffered heart attacks at a reptile show 30 years ago, and choosing instead to linger on painfully average kill scenes.
In between the strange events and brutal murders that take place within the walls of this closed theatre, Torrone uses various characters as conduits for his political musings. One actor claims the entertainment industry is concerned with making “content” rather than art, while the killer’s final diatribe is a rant about how humanity takes life for granted while constantly distracting itself from natural wonder. All of which are interesting isolated speeches, but when coming from killer and victim alik,e only add to the confused buffet of half-baked ideas that is Dead By Dawn’s singular defining trait.
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Dead by Dawn
Summary
Polish slasher ‘Dead By Dawn’ has promise, but is ultimately overstuffed, dry, and hard to swallow.
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