Dead Reset - Festival Review

From the minds behind indie horror treasures, including the award-winning 'Book of Monsters' (2018) and 'How to Kill Monsters' (2023), Stewart Sparke and Paul Butler deliver the exceedingly intricate and wickedly gruesome 'Dead Reset'. Hailing from the one and only York, the Sparke and Butler duo are known for their fantastical, almost Grimm's fairytale-like monstrous mayhem, with their outputs taking British horror by storm through their wildly adventurous tales brimming with creatures galore. 

Dead Reset opens with a pedal to the metal, full throttle force as we see a young woman being attacked by a strange and weirdly grotesque creature that has latched itself onto her neck. As blood gushes out of her gullet, onlookers watch in horror as the entity leaps forth to the horrified witnesses and rips apart a bystander's face, spitting out sinew and fleshy remnants as stretchy tissue is ripped from her cheek. One by one, this monster makes its way through the crowd in increasingly gory fashion, until all of a sudden Cole (Daniel Thrace) wakes up; this bloodshed was all just a soul-shakingly terrifying dream. However, the nightmare is far from over as we learn that this introductory fright-fest is an eerie premonition, a cyclical horror story with deadly consequences. Dead Reset follows Cole, a surgeon, who repeatedly wakes up after suffering from these horrifying memories of tentacled beasts. Desperate to escape these prophetic time-loops of death and destruction, he must dive deep into the extremely bloodied Groundhog Day-esque ordeal. 

Dead Reset leads with its unique formula. Although a horror feature through and through, the film's eccentric physics-busting, time-slip plot lines are all a service to the particular type of narrative that Sparke and Butler bravely delve into. Dead Reset is actually a full motion video game (FMV), with all the footage compiled into a cinematic narrative structure, resembling an innovative horror film. The time loop essence that Dead Reset follows is incredibly representative of the interactivity and engaging personalisation that video games offer, in turn creating a film that is not only refreshing but also distinctively reminiscent of how horror is one of the most synergetic and immersive genres out there. 

The format is made all the more elaborate and heavily thematic by the generous displays of graphic effects, which, as exhibited within thirty seconds of the film opening, is not for the faint-hearted. Throughout Sparkes and Butler's career in genre cinema, there seems to be a running motif of each film becoming increasingly gratuitous with its gore. Dead Reset is certainly no exception. The film dares to go to great depths of splattered violence in a bid to exacerbate the true terror oozing from the tonally rich narrative and aid in the overall fun-factor that the film manages to not forget amidst all the turmoil and emotive calamity.

In the same vein, the primary antagonistic force, i.e. the creatures themselves, are akin to a vessel for an air of Lovecraftian-like, cosmic horror to bloom. Words alone do not do enough justice to the crypticness of these multi-limbed, rapid, nefariously imposing and almost gelatinously slimy specimens that wreak ultimate havoc. 

Finally, throughout all of Dead Reset's praise, there is the most distinctively crucial element that propels the film: the performances. Thrace, as Cole does a fantastic job at portraying bafflement and bewilderment, combined with anxiety, with a hint of determined intelligence and ferociousness throughout his character's journey. Next is the familiar face in indie horror, Lyndsey Craine, who plays Fearne, a character teaming with wit and steadfastness, a sure-fire fan favourite. Forming the rest of the cast is Dennis Rasaq as Slade, Adrina Carroll as Magson, Michaela Longden as Cooper and Johnny Vivash as Crawford, who all, alongside a whole host of other performers, create a landscape for the psychological weight of the story to bloom. 

Dead Reset is quite literally unlike anything else out there right now. It's a film that is incredibly effective, charged with brutal visuals, possessing a structural undertone that is rife with impossible choices and themes of alienation, paranoia, fear and the horror of the unknown. But most importantly, Dead Reset is an unnerving experience that blends the lines of multimedia, creating an unforgettable experience. 

You can grab your tickets to watch Dead Reset at this years Festival here!

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