Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

bowmanblue One factor for any good horror movie is that is must be atmospheric. However, the makers of Damned by Dawn take the word 'atmospheric' to mean 'foggy.' The film is about a young couple who return to their family home in the foggiest part of Australia to see a dying relative. However, a banshee pops out of the fog and causes brutal havoc.Now, I read some of the other reviews before I watched this and, I have to say, they kind of lower your expectations. But, for the first third of the movie, I had to wonder whether they were talking about the same film. I thought it was actually quite good. It had a nice (foggy) set-up and some potential.Then came the CGI. Not only are CGI baddies imposed on us, but also, if the cast happen to be running through a non-foggy area, CGI fog is added (and it's really bad CGI fog too!).The one dimensional characters just about manage to act their parts and the banshee's screaming is pretty creepy, plus there's some good gore (when you can see it through the fog), but, overall, I found myself eventually agreeing with the other reviews.It may not be the worst film ever made (not while Michael Bay's Transformers franchise is still on a roll), but it's definitely not the best. Unless it happens to be on and you feel like a so-so horror flick, don't bother paying to watch this.

courtenaymckinnon I rented this movie through my phone one night for something to watch. I never read anything about the movie prior to renting it, just seen the title and decided it was a go. I'm a huge fan of horror movies and I also do like indie films. I liked the plot the movie has. Although, I wish it went in depth a little more when Nan tells her granddaughter what's up. At times it was a little hard to follow but I got the point.Overall I give it a 5/10. Not being mean or disrespectful to the directors, and the actors in this film did a great job and could tell they were committed to the movie.

eirecat There are three things I really love in life: a few whiskey sours, a good low-budget horror movie, and being lazy. I notate this because watching Damned By Dawn deprived me of two of these three on a rare evening off and I'm pretty steamed. I had the whiskey sours, but Damned By Dawn was so unforgivably not a "good" low-budget horror movie that it made me so angry I had to stop being lazy long enough to go through the whole process of registering to this site so I could write a vitriolic review.Maybe "angry" isn't the right word, though. I think it actually comes much closer to "annoyed". This is through and through an annoying movie. Don't get me wrong, there are some very prominent good things about the movie. The actors all seem to be having a good time and deliver enjoyable performances, and the atmosphere of the setting is delightfully sinister. But smearing strawberry icing over a road-apple does not a cupcake make, and the good parts of the movie just made me all the more irritated that the glaring faults were bad enough to overpower them.Between laughable undead effects (made all the more glaring by the genuinely good effects work elsewhere), an incomprehensible ending (Seriously. I will give 100 internet nerd points to whoever can tell me what the HELL happened. The Banshee's wound closes up...for some reason...a baby cries...the Banshee pukes up some blood...???...profit?), and the niggling voice in the back of my head screaming "Why? WHY is a movie about Banshee set in Australia!?!", it would be enough to turn me off this movie. But then there's the unfortunate fact that it's also so cliché ridden and logically unsound that I honestly wouldn't be surprised if someone told me it was actually supposed to be a parody.First of all, Nana (Dawn Klingberg), if you know that a scary ghost lady is going to come and scream bloody murder outside the house on the night of your death, *and* it's very important for the good of your eternal soul that said blood-soaked screaming nightmare woman not be interrupted...it might be a good idea to tell more than one person about it. And if you can only tell the one, you might want to be a *little* bit less vague and cryptic. Oh, the dead will come back to life and murder everyone in shrieking distance (which, it turns out, is quite a ways) if you aren't cremated and put in a special urn? That seems like some important info right there. Might not want to play your canasta cards so close to your vest on that one. And, while Claire (Renee Willner) starts out as a likable enough protagonist, she eventually falls drastically into what's essentially a whimpering mannequin as she watches curled up against a far wall while three of the people closest to her are brutally murdered. Claire, honey, I know you're not Van Helsing or anything but for the love of god, if my undead boyfriend was bludgeoning my father to death, I sure as Sidhe would at least try to do a little more then whine about it.Enjoy visual mood effects? Give this movie a once-over with liberal use of the fast forward button. Enjoy movies where you *don't* root for the heroine's head to explode via Banshee wail just so the interminable thing is over? I'd suggest giving Damned By Dawn a pass.

Boloxxxi This movie is about a couple, Claire and Paul, who go to visit her relatives outback (it's an Australian movie) somewhere. In the course of their visit, the grandmother, who is very old and ill, tells Claire that she doesn't have much time remaining and entrusts her with a valuable urn. Claire doesn't want to hear such talk but the grandmother continues and tells her we all gotta go sometime (this is true folks) -but that she wasn't worried because "the lady of sorrows" -she who bawls for the dead (actually, they more poetically used "wails" but being a wise-ass I couldn't resist) -would oversee her final journey. As well, she tells Claire that no one should harm the bawling lady (there I go again) or interfere. At this point you can guess what happens: one of them unwittingly did something to the bawling woman and unhappy consequences follow.This movie, in my ever so humble opinion, is overall not a bad movie. The creepiest part unfortunately happens in the first quarter or so of it. So what went wrong after that? "Flying skeletons". Say what???. You heard me, folks. Someone had the bright idea of injecting FLYING SKELETONS in this thing. The effect of this was to make the movie seem a little silly, a little retro, and a little cheap, and therefore to negate or offset a lot of the genuine creepiness it began with. Folks (I think you will agree with me), there is no way in the world flying skeletons are going to freak anyone out; not in this day and age. These days, this is something that you would put in a horror comedy which this was not intended to be.Notwithstanding the above, this is generally not a bad movie. It just lost it's way to further real supernatural creepiness in the early go with the introduction of the skeletons and became more of a "monster" or "creature" movie, of sorts, even though they were supposed to be ghosts. So while much was lost if you wanted to be supernaturally creeped out, there was still creature horror and suspense. And in additional defense of what was not a bad effort, let me say that there are some movies that are today considered cult horror classics that had skeletons in them that looked no better than these, but at least they had the good sense not to make them airborne. Love, Boloxxxi.