Dead in 3 Days

Austria

German, Subtitled in yellow on black

Allegrofilm Productions

Madman
R4 DVD

Reviewed: Bob Estreich

A group of students has just passed their exams. At home, each of them receives a mysterious text message on their mobile phone – “You will be dead in 3 days”. They have all dismissed the message as just a joke by one of their number.

The first student, Martin, vanishes that night from the toilet during a party at the school. Although he has just disappeared, his girlfriend Nina compares notes with the rest of the group and they realize they have all got the same message. They suspect a student named Patrick, with whom their friend has recently had an argument. The Police officer, Martin’s cousin Kogler, is unhelpful, pointing out that Martin must be missing for 24 hours before they can take any action. Martin’s body is found the next day in the lake, trussed up and tied to a cement block. He was drowned.

Now another student is being stalked. Nina (Sabrina Reiter) realizes there is someone in the house when a dripping tap is mysteriously turned off. She is abducted and taken during a heavy storm to a building on the lake. It looks like she is to suffer the same fate as Martin. Another of the students has been keeping an eye on her, and rescues her, but although she escapes he is killed. Then racing away from the building where she was kept, she is struck by a passing police car driven by Martin’s cousin.

Another girl is killed in her parents’ hotel. She is drowned in a tank of water for fresh fish, and her throat is cut on the jagged glass edge. The killer seems to have an obsession about drowning the victims.

There are only three students left of the group of friends. Nina realizes she knows the hooded killer from his identikit picture, but she can’t work out where she has met him. Then she remembers. In their childhood a young lad named Fabian Haas was involved in a fatal accident (a fall through thin ice) that the friends may have caused, and the identikit picture looks like Fabian’s father. He held them responsible for his son’s death. There is only one problem – he hanged himself two years after his son’s death, so just who – or what - is stalking them? And he IS still stalking them, despite a police guard. Nina is having nightmares and feels she must be going mad. They decide to go to the old Haas house to see if there is anyone there. The killer is indeed there, and in the house the final crazed confrontation will take place.

The backdrop of the beautiful lake country of Austria is in stark contrast to the terror of the night scenes as the victims are taken. The constant connection with water only becomes clear at the end of the film. Director Andreas Prochaska has used subtlety in this connection, and you are kept in suspense to the end. He allows his cast to develop their characters a little (before killing them off), and their apparent normalcy such as living with their parents, partying and taking pleasure in each other’s company make the murders more unreal but no less deadly. Sure, we have seen many of the plot elements before in other films, but this film is at least as good as the others and seems more gripping because of the restraint shown by the directors. The quality of their acting and his workmanship in no way suffer from the small budget of the film. If you want continuous gore and splatter, this is not the film for you. If you want a finely crafted suspense drama with a bit of gore, try this one.

The DVD includes the usual “The Making Of…” and trailers.

This review will appear in Volume 2 No.3 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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