TL;DR –  It is a film with a lot of intrigue, but I wish it had a bit more going on under the hood.  

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Deadland Review –

I do love when films get weird, when they play with your perceptions of what is real or not, though I should maybe stop playing them before bed. Today, we are looking at a film that does just that with the people in the movie, but does it have the same effect on the audience?

So, to set the scene, we find ourselves on the USA/Mexico border with US Customs and Border Patrol, where they find a suspicious van trying to cross. Agents Angel Waters (Roberto Urbina) and Ray Hitchcock (McCaul Lombardi) find just a kid behind the wheel and a whole lot of drugs in the back. It was just a routine day for The Patrol, but when Angel is alone and finds the body of The Stranger (Luis Chávez) floating dead in the river, he is the most surprised when the man wakes up out of his body bag on the drive home. But when Angel’s father, Ignacio Coronado (Manuel Uriza), returns and the dead man, now alive, turns up dead again, things start falling apart, and this is when Internal Affairs starts to sniff around.  

At the centre of the film is a small three-person team mostly isolated on the border with Angel, Ray, and Salomé (Julieth Restrepo) living with the guilt of a monumental stuff up. Then, we get to see how that reverberates through the team as they choose a cover-up over the truth. IA gets involved because of Angel’s dad, but everyone misconstrues it, and oh, they are being haunted by the vestige of the man they killed who doesn’t seem to want to stay dead. It has all the settings of a good mystery, and Luis Chávez nails the mysterious, maybe ghost, maybe demon, and perhaps just a man who doesn’t want to die. It is here where the intrigue and mystery really lands, and it is some of the best moments of the film when you are not sure just what is going on. Is it stress, or is there something supernatural going down?   

However, for all its good set-up, Deadland was also full of frustrations. While I think it was part of the point that no one was particularly likeable in this film. It was hard to latch onto anything when you are struggling to care about anyone in the movie. Then there are these frustrating elements, like Angel’s wife Hannah (Kendal Rae), whose only role is to cause antagonism in ways that don’t feel real to the moment. The film does try to have something to say about power, and there was an attempt at a last-minute swerve, but it felt a bit too little too late.    

In the end, do we recommend Deadland? While this was a film with a lot of intrigue, it never graduated beyond that. But if nothing else, it did remind me that I would like to see Luis Chávez in more films. If you liked Deadland, we would recommend to you The Leftovers.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Deadland
Directed by – Lance Larson
Written by – Lance Larson & Jas Shelton
Music by – Christopher Dean White
Cinematography by – Jas Shelton
Edited by – Lance Larson
Production/Distribution Companies – Visit Films, Bridge Films, Eya Productions, Odd Man Out & Lightbulb Films
Starring – Roberto Urbina, McCaul Lombardi, Julieth Restrepo, Kendal Rae, Luis Chávez, Chris Mulkey, Julio Cesar Cedillo & Manuel Uriza
Rating Around an Australia: M;