"Dead Awake" is one of the strangest movies I have seen in quite some time. Obviously, it was inspired by "The Sixth Sense", though the mystery angle has been increased, as well as with its strangeness. It's directed in a really bizarre way, in an anonymous style (and with anonymous locations) that for the longest time made me think the movie was shot in a foreign country and the filmmakers were trying hard to disguise things. Stranger, however, is the screenplay. While the big questions the movie brings up are eventually answered, there are several minor questions that remained unanswered, like the mysterious policeman character at the beginning as well as the status of Nick Stahl's character at the end of the movie. While the movie is offbeat enough to make its ninety-two minutes never boring, in the end I feel most viewers will be unsatisfied because it doesn't quite give enough explanation.

After seeing the low scores on this film, I was encouraged to write a review as this film is worthy of a Seven, not the Four or lower most viewers have given it. The film has an excellent cast including Nick Stahl (Of Terminator Fame), Rose McGowan, and Amy Smart (both extremely under-rated actresses who can do comedy, drama, horror, thrillers, you name it and extremely attractive without being model gorgeous at the same time) as well as two lesser known actors playing the Irish "parent substitutes" for Nick Stahl's character, Dylan.

The film is basically a thriller that leaves you guessing as to Dylan's fate. Is he alive or dead? Is he talking to ghosts? This has been compared by other reviewers to "Sixth Sense" and I would agree. In essence, Dylan still hasn't come to terms with the death of his parents and assisting a crack addict, Charlie (Rose McGowan) finds redemption as does she. Meanwhile, with Charlies guidance, he rediscovers his old high school sweetheart, Natalie (Amy Smart), and is able to rekindle a romance that should never have ended.

So what does this film offer? It keeps you guessing as an excellent thriller should; the presence of the ?undead? and the fact Dylan works in a funeral home lend an element of fantasy, mystery, and eeriness; the rekindled relationship and flashbacks with Natalie provide romance; and most of all, all of the three main characters achieve some form of redemption. Seven Stars, would recommend to anyone and would watch again.

Ever wonder who would show up at your funeral? After attending a funeral for an old high school friend and running in to his ex-girlfriend (Amy Smart) Dylan (Stahl) comes up with a plan to stage his own death and hold a funeral for himself. When a strange crack addict (McGowan) shows up to see him his life takes a strange turn and nothing is what it seems. This movie is hard to explain without giving anything away, but the best way I can put it is that it is a cross between the "Sixth Sense" and "After.Life". I really enjoyed the movie and I'm not sure if it was because I had no expectations heading in or because it was actually a very good movie (if that makes sense). This is more of a drama then horror, in the same way the "Sixth Sense" could be categorized either way. I really liked the twist at the end, I honestly can predict about 95% of movies made lately and this one got me. I was very surprised at how much I liked it. I surprisingly give it a B+.

Would I watch it again? - I would, if only to catch clues I missed the first time.

Some people should not be allowed to watch The Sixth Sense. A prime example of that is the folks who made Dead Awake. It's the same principle as not letting young children view pornography. They're not intellectually or emotionally ready to understand it and can get a lot of screwed up ideas. Director Omar Naim and writers John Harrington, David Bolvin and Justin Urich got the impression they were as talented as M. Night Shyamalan and could do the same things he did with his ghost story masterpiece. I could believe someone thinking they're as good as Shyamalan after watching Lady in the Water, but for this bunch seeing The Sixth Sense was like an 10 year old viewing Butt Bandits #27. Their attempts at mimicry are painful and damaging to everyone involved.

Dylan (Nick Stahl) is a 28 year old insomniac with a job at a funeral home and not much else. He's haunted by visions of a taxi cab accident 10 years ago, though he should probably be more tormented by the lame haircut he sports through this film. After running into his ex-girlfriend Natalie (Amy Smart) at the funeral of one of their high school classmates, Dylan is depressed and feels like a nothing. To cheer him up, his relentlessly Irish boss (Brian Lynner) stages a fake funeral for Dylan to see if anyone shows up. The only people who do are Natalie and a squirrelly girl from Skid Row named Charlie (Rose McGowan). Since Natalie has been dating a douchebag for most of the last decade, Dylan turns his attention to the mysterious Charlie and follows her to her slumhole of an apartment. It turns out Charlie is a sketchy junkie who thinks Dylan is a ghost who believes he's alive and needs to make his final amends before moving on, which inevitably leads to Dylan and Natalie reconnecting and the only thing that might surprise you after that point in the story is how ineptly and inartfully it's all done.

There are so many things to criticize in Dead Awake. From Nick Stahl and Brian Lynner acting as though they're in two entirely different movies, to the unnecessary camera movement and pointless visual tricks that herald a director who doesn't know what he's doing, to a soundtrack that belongs on one of those Saturday night atrocities on the SyFy channel, to dual plot twists that epically fail where The Sixth Sense succeeded, the list of mistakes, misjudgments and misery for the audience goes on and on and on.

Let me focus on one specific flaw so you can get the overall flavor of how this movie sucks. As previously mentioned, Natalie is introduced as having a long-standing dillhole of a boyfriend (Ben Martin). For the first 5 minutes this guy is on screen, he does everything but drop kick a puppy to make the audience dislike him. Later on, the boyfriend sees Dylan and Natalie talking, with the old chemistry between them reigniting. Everything about that scene, how it's shot, the boyfriend's reactions, even the background music, it's all designed to elicit sympathy for the boyfriend as he sees the woman he loves slipping away from him. Except the boyfriend is a total jagoff and the viewer, up to that point, has been encouraged to want Natalie to dump his sorry ass. So, why should anyone care about his hurt feelings and why would the filmmakers want to make them care? There's bad storytelling, but this is like a psychotic break where the film completely forgets all that's happened to that point and all that's going to happen after that. I don't think I've ever watched another scene as out of tune, emotionally and dramatically, with the rest of a motion picture as this one. It would be like an orgy scene in a porno where everybody just stops for a minute and tries to sell the viewer Girl Scout cookies.

Stahl, Amy Smart and Rose McGowan are much better than this material and its execution. The rest of the cast is in their proper element.

I wish I would have slept through Dead Awake. There isn't any interesting awfulness here. It's plain vanilla bad. Skip it.

Holy crap this was terrible. It was not a thriller. It was barely a romantic movie because there was no real romancing, they just skipped straight to being back together.

The music? OH GOD THE MUSIC WAS THE CHEESIEST THING SINCE KRAFT BLUE BOX.

Plot twist had less twists than SOMETHING WITH NO TWISTS IN IT. Apparently I need more words to describe how bad this movie was. Apparently I need more words to describe how bad this movie was. Apparently I need more words to describe how bad this movie was. Apparently I need more words to describe how bad this movie was.

The only thing I can say about this: random. The story is pretty random and the execution is pretty poor. The story skips and jumps around like a rubber ball and there is no consistency in the characters. The acting is so awful that the makers had to resort to in-your-face scoring to push the viewer into the mood they couldn't achieve through good story telling. Nothing adds up in the end and you're left with a feeling that neither writer nor director have have any idea about how to make a compelling movie.

But what really ruined the movie for me were the two Irish characters. Brian Lynner as Decko was just as untalented as a B-class actor can get and his Irish accent was a completely annoying farce. Mixing Scottish and a few local Irish accents just made me want to turn off the sound every time that guy opened his mouth. Who ever casted him should hang their heads in shame. Same goes for the character of his wife, whose name I am too lazy to look up.

Do yourself a favor and skip this one. This movie is boring, unimaginative and annoying.

It boggles the mind that movies this bad continue to get made. One can only wonder, can anyone write or tell (direct) a coherent story in Hollywood these days? The description for this movie talks about the main character faking his own death, and indeed there is a single scene that deals with this intriguing idea. But the movie is more about death and atonement for one's choices while living.

There are plot holes you could drive a sixteen wheeler through, including the main character being shot twice at point blank range and not suffering so much as a scratch; and a would be guardian angel, who though dead, can register vitals on hospital equipment and interact with the living as a normal living human being (for ten years, no less).

Mix in some David Lynch-ian like purposely nebulous confusion and you've got a recipe for the typical piece of **** film that leaves the viewer wondering: "are the writers really this stupid, or is it just them trying to be too clever by half".

The only silver lining for me was that my girlfriend got it for free with a coupon deal at Redbox. Mercifully, we paid nothing to view it, which is exactly what it was worth.

Dylan O'Rourke ( Nick Stahl ) is a young man living in a state of depression after suffering the loss of both of his parents in one fateful night ten years prior. Unable to cope with the weight of his guilt, Dylan retracts from society, unable to continue with his girlfriend Natalie (Amy Smart) again and worse...unable to bring himself to visit his parents' grave. He now spends his time as a recluse, working in perhaps the most depressing environment of all - a Funeral Home. While overseeing a packed funeral for an old high school friend, fate takes it's course and he comes face to face with Natalie. His boss - a burly Undertaker named Dekko ( keenly played by unknown Brian Lynner ) inspires him to stage his own funeral to see who would show up. He tells Dylan "You can tell a man's character by who shows up at his funeral." Sadly, just two people show; Natalie and a crack junkie named Charlie Scheel (Rose MCGowan in her strongest performance yet.)

Regardless of the small turnout, Dylan is set on a path to reconnect with his long lost love and Charlie. He eventually finds Charlie in the seediest of crack dens and after revealing himself, he inadvertently forces her to believe that he is an angel that has come to take her away from this hell she lives in. Moments later, Charlie's drug dealer / pimp puts two slugs into Dylan at point blank range but the bullets pass through him in divine intervention. Dylan befriends Charlie but cannot get her to believe that he is very much alive and not the angel she believes him to be. She tells him "The walking dead are all around us and that there are dead who are in an unbreakable state of denial. They so strongly believe they are alive, that they become visible and real to those in the world of the living." She asks him "what is is like when you die?" And tells him "I'm not ready to go just yet because I have to get clean first and when I get clean, then you can come and take me."

Days later, Dylan finds Charlie OD'd in her crack den. He brings her to the hospital and into a heavy blanket of coincidence - or perhaps something else - when Natalie arrives on the scene as Charlie's nurse. Dyalan and Natalie reconnect on old times while Charlie recovers in bed. Dylan tries to find purpose in his "wasted life" and takes his entire savings to the man - an aging gangster - who owns Charlie. He ultimately frees Charlie by paying off the gangster and settling her $20,000 debt. Upon doing so, he spots an unmistakable Claddagh Ring an and among the gangster's collection of stolen items laid out on the table before him - a ring that belonged to his parents. Dylan storms back to the hospital and forces Charlie to admit her guilt - that she was the one who brought the ring to the gangster. But Charlie goes further, admitting that she was the driver of the cab - one that she stole to feed her drug habit - that killed his parents. Dylan explodes and storms off, not wanting anything to do with Charlie for the most obvious of reasons.

Charlie leaves a voice mail with Dylan, telling him to meet her on the roof of the hospital. Charlie goes there and finds Charlie about to commit suicide. He attempts to talk her down from the ledge but Charlie refuses until Dylan admits his love for Natalie. Dylan professes his everlasting love for Natalie just as she arrives on the rooftop as Charlie's other invited guest. Their everlasting love now realized, Natalie dumps her unloving husband for Dylan. They visit Dylan's parents grave at the cemetery with Dekko and Dekko's wife (unknown Kim Grimaldi in a strong performance) before setting out on a new beginning together.

The film concludes with the revelation - a solid twist - that Charlie has been dead all along and is actually Dylan's guardian angel. Unwilling to accept her death as it occurred in the cab with Dylan's parents, she had become the walking dead.

From here, we surmise Detective Milano was also the walking dead, a guardian angel. He tells Dylan "I'm just here to look after you is all." If you feel the need to give a helping hand to those who need it most and / or have ever experienced true love, love lost, loneliness, desperation, isolation, doubt and fear among all that life brings, then you will find a resounding, strong and uplifting message within Dead Awake. This piece rises above the negativity that incorrect audience expectations tend to invite with them. I'd give this a 9/10 if it weren't for that over cooked, cringing music score that almost swallows the last half. Man...that score sets the bar low. It's almost as if the composer locked him/herself in the editing room without a key. Dead Awake is a great story that is well written and well told. Omar Naim's direction is solid overall. Forgiveness is easy to grant on the choppy and confusing flashback sequences and I'll even add some additional applause for the stylishness behind Charlie's POV - what I believe is her guardian angel aura? I'm certain it was. When all is said and done, this is the type of movie that will always give you more every time you sit down with it. You can't expect more than that from a low budget effort. Well done!

This movie was really good and I'm not to sure why it got so many bad reviews. This movie made me think of "After.Life" but I am not sure why maybe because the eeriness that was in both of them? Just the feel of it I suppose. Anyways it is about a man who has gone through a tragedy and then somehow when he fakes his death the person who caused the tragedy somehow lives through it and gets to make amends. Doing so the whole movie leads you through twists and turns and leaves clues of the ending throughout, I knew what was going on. Boy gets girl the dead passes on after amends, kind of like the usual but written differently and uniquely. On a side note at times I felt it was awfully slow and could have been written better to pick up speed and get you into it more. I am no one to judge though. Overall the movie was really good predictable or not, worth a watch.

This movie had been in my watch list for quite some time because it sounded interesting and I like Nick Stahl and Rose Mcgowan…So to I decided to watch it today. I think this movie had potential, at the core, if it went a different way. Overall, I finished it and wish I chose something else to watch. I didn't like the camera work. A lot of the movie doesn't make sense until the end, which I don't mind/ was expecting, but I was hoping for the revelation or whatever at the end to be worth while, which I don't think it was, It made me understand somethings but it didn't make the movie any better. People were saying this movie was strange, I like strange but ugh no, this movie was just pretty crappy and i hate the feeling i have when i finish a movie that i didn't like, but I guess that's just the way it is.

In my opinion, "Dead Awake" is like a movie made by someone who doesn't like movies. There is nothing from the start to the finish of this "film" that interesting.

I bought (yes, I bought) this film on blu-ray because I am a fan of both Amy Smart and Rose McGowan. I've watched quite a few films that feature each of these two ladies, and I have never failed to be entertained by their films.

Enter "Dead Awake." Confusing from the beginning, it never engaged me in any way. I didn't feel anything while watching this movie that even resembled suspense, wonder, happiness, sadness, or excitement. Maybe I felt slightly annoyed a few times, but that is about as strong of an emotion that I felt.

Nick Stahl's character was an unlikable "Dylan Downer" who has basically given up on life after his parents are killed in a car accident. Nothing he does makes any sense - especially the preposterous idea that he would fake his own funeral just to see if anyone would show up. Real people that suffer from depression would never consider anything so emotionally risky as this.

A down and out junkie Charlie (Rose McGowan) wanders in to his fake funeral (after the place is closed), and eventually has a conversation with Dylan's long lost love Natalie (Amy Smart) who also waits until the funeral is over to show up (yet, young Dylan continues to lay in his coffin.) All this eventually leads to Dylan hanging out with Charlie, and rekindling his feelings for Natalie.

Natalie is engaged to a soon to be successful lawyer type who undoubtedly will give her wealth, but maybe not true love. When Dylan finds Charlie passed out in her bathroom from a drug overdose, he gets her to the hospital. Surprise! Her nurse turns out to be Natalie. So they start talking and...

Numerous coincidences link all of the main characters in a way that only a poorly written story can do. By the time it is over, I just didn't care what happened. I just wanted it to end.

So save your time and money. Sit this one out. But if you just have to see this film, I will be listing it on eBay in a few minutes.

BRIEF BLU-RAY REVIEW:

I believe that this was shot on 16 mm film. So, you have a pretty gritty, primitive, high-contrasty look to the movie. This isn't your usual glossy new looking film, but I feel that it's unique, stark look really lends itself to the story.

Now, to the movie... I had seen this film quite some time ago and I vaguely remember that I did like it. But, I just now watched it again on Blu-ray and I found that I still very much enjoyed it. Actually, I was kind of surprised that I liked this movie that much. Normally I do not care for 'Drama' heavy films, no matter the Genre. BUT... I really liked the way the movie was done, so that you had a nice, tense feel of light Horror, and a definite sense of Mystery, and along with that also a very touching and moving story surrounding this young man and what has been going on the last 10 years of his life.

The story itself is VERY simple. It is not the kind of movie where you have anything really intense or shocking. It is very moody, but in a simple way. You might have to give it a chance to get going a bit before you quite get into what is going on. The acting is very good by everyone involved. I'm not necessarily a HUGE fan of Nick Stahl, but I felt that he did a fine job here, along with everyone else. The director gave the film a nice sense of Mystery and tension. And understandably, the audience may not quite be sure as to what the deal is with this guy or the meaning of the flashbacks that occur. But, this is one of those stories that becomes clear as you progress through it, and of course especially when you get to the end.

***PLEASE*** be very careful in reading about this film before you see it. I NEVER cease to be completely amazed at the brainless STUPIDITY and lack of any good sense or consideration by the NumbNut Donkey-Sucking Dickweeds here who blurt out key plot points to the films that they 'review'... Pure, PHUK'n Idiots, if you ask me... Anyway, please do read with care, or better yet, just watch the movie and see what you think. To give you some guidance WITHOUT mindlessly giving anything away, just know that this film TECHNICALLY has some metaphysical themes, but is primarily Drama and character driven. Like I mentioned, normally I really don't get very excited about films that are weighted more toward 'Drama', but in this case I feel that the story is told in such a way as to draw the audience into what is happening and involve them. This is NOT really a true Horror film, so if that is what you are looking for, then you should pass on this one. But, if you don't mind a bit of a low-key, Drama driven quasi-Supernatural / Metaphysical film about Death, etc., then you might end up enjoying it like I did.