‘Dead Teenagers’ Review – Brisk Indie Horror Can’t Overcome Complications

At 80 minutes, credits and all, Dead Teenagers may be one of the shortest possible undertakings on the board available to you. Being a new entry on the indie horror scene does plenty of surface-level favors, to boot. That may seem like a good bet at first look, but given what the film does with that time, you may still be better off finding something else to do with it. Dead Teenagers has a lot going on, yet at the same time, very little actually happens for a film about a rag-tag unit of kids who find themselves literally trapped inside the unfolding events of a screenplay. You’ve got a masked killer and a high-concept base, but most of that potential is lost on the final product.

What Dead Teenagers does get right is on the visual front, save for a few undeniably moving story swings. In spite of a thin budget, which is apparent, the film looks impressive. Director Quinn Armstrong situates his cast in cornered shadows and rays of window light; he’s framing scenes uniquely and consistently finds ways to frame coverage unconventionally. In that, a decent portion of the stuff that doesn’t work in the script is combated by extensive effort to make the thing look good. But without a good, cogent script, it just won’t work out in the end. Unfortunately, Dead Teenagers fatally suffers there.

Again, there are some basically compelling ideas on the table. The script plot twist isn’t revealed until later in the film than you’d expect, and it comes after the group has a run-in with the masked man. Right when questions start to arise, they get the big, ugly answer. Things get real at that point, and it’s fairly fun for a beat around the middle portion. But soon thereafter, the film falls in on itself. There’s a clear meta angle within the narrative that plays a purposefully confusing card. Over and over again, the same twist is reused in order to further mix things up. It’s hard to say much without spoiling something, but the final act just feels like one big brain scramble.

Interlaced between choppy transitions and painfully uneven pacing are frames that attempt to explain the madness, but they do very little as far as justifying the struggle on the whole. That issue is made worse by what it does to the characters. Their dynamics, which were at no point insanely strong, really break down under the weight of the meta-narrative shenanigans. The actors are doing their best with what they’re given, but even then, very little can be done about some of the dialogue and overall interactions in this script.

It’s not all bad, truly. Dead Teenagers doesn’t phone any aspect in and is delivered with a palpable respect for the horror/slasher genre in which it falls, at least mainly. The film manages some standout cinematography and memorable murder too. Yet, as short as it is, not much is done out of the ordinary, and what is unique doesn’t fully land. You’re left with a lukewarm experience that won’t elicit any strong feelings. It won’t scare you all that much, and you likely won’t be moved either. There’s fun here and there, but you can find fun just about anywhere.

Unless you’ve been particularly compelled to check it out for reasons entirely your own or are a fan of the “Fresh Hell’ trilogy, Dead Teenagers is an inconsequential skip. As usual with more intimate genre efforts like this one, horror fans may be able to find an angle of appreciation here. For those folks, maybe this is worth a watch on the right day. Even that feels like a “gimme” though.

Dead Teenagers is currently playing in select theaters and is available On Demand courtesy of Cranked Up Films. The previous installments in the trilogy, The Exorcism of Saint Patrick and Wolves Against The World, are also currently available On Demand.