Fall Down Dead
A metropolitan city is in the grip of fear when rolling blackouts bring out a serial killer dubbed The Picasso Killer. One night, in the middle of a blackout, seven strangers become trapped in an office building as the killer hunts for Christie Wallace, the woman that can identify him.
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- Cast:
- Mihaela Rădulescu , Udo Kier , Devin McGee , Dominique Swain , Jennifer Alden , David Carradine , Mehmet Günsür
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Reviews
SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?
Perfect cast and a good story
A lot of fun.
Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
The synopsis is this:In a big American city, the serial killer The Picasso Killer is terrorizing the dwellers and the police department does not have lead to find him. The bartender Christie Wallace dreams on moving to the countryside with her six year-old daughter Zoe to have a peaceful life far from the violence of the city. Late night of Christmas Eve, Christie leaves the Tides Bar where she works and walks back home. In an alley, she sees a woman dying covered on blood and The Picasso Killer sees Christie and chases her. She runs to a commercial building where the night watchman Wade is reluctant to open the door and does not give credit to Christie. She calls the police and Detectives Stefan Kerchek and Lawrence Kellog attend the call. When Christie tells that she can recognize the infamous serial-killer, there is a blackout, the phones are dead and the detectives cannot call the precinct. They lock the building waiting for reinforcement but sooner they find that The Picasso Killer has broken in the building and their lives are in danger.The other night I could not get sleepy! No matter how many boring infomercials I watched or sedatives I took I just could not get my mind and eyes to the point of groggy. Luckily I pay a ridiculous price for cable and receive on demand as well for over exaggerated premium channels. The one upside to these little additives of life are the off chance that something I have not seen may cross by the screen. Well lo and behold finely after what seemed like hours of surfing I found something that intrigued me. "Fall Down Dead" – a movie about a serial killer who found artistic vision in carving and displaying beautiful women in an attempt to create his masterpiece and life's achievement.I only recognized one person in this film- well two actually. David Carradine and Udo Kier. Now Udo is like awesome to me because he played my all time favorite vamp in Andy Warhol's "Dracula". I can still close my eyes and see him fall to the floor jerking and writhing while trying to lick up virgin blood from the floor of a french château.This film – "Fall Down Dead" was actually pretty good. The characters were not exaggerated nor over written. Sometimes they can come off cartoonish or not so believable. David Carradine did somewhat but luckily his characters presence was short. The heroin played by Dominique Araine, who is a single mother living with her young daughter and a female roommate accidentally walks up on one of the Picasso Killers scenes while he is still doing his thing. He immediately sees her as the woman of his true inspiration and chases her into an office building during the city's rolling blackouts. She has it rough! First a bum she gives coffee too because it is Christmas Eve and she fills sorry for him tries to steal her purse after she gets off work then a serial killer takes a liking to her and hunts her down.Now this would make a perfect Christmas film for future holidays because it does happen on Christmas Eve. Anyway, lady has to fight for her life because the killer gets into the building with her, two cops that were supposed to be on a drug bust but decided to call it a night when the call came in about a killing, the security guard played by Carradine-who is like the worlds oldest slacker rent a cop, and three employees of the buildings business.So one by one the killer without much ado or dialog takes out the sheeple . The deaths are gory and in your face. The Picasso Killer is only artistic when it comes to his muses in this pic. The others just get slash-o-rama treatment familiar in any horror film. This film is a great slasher and serial killer style flick reminiscent of many 80's styled films like "New York Ripper". This film is a good thriller based film with descent acting and slasher styled gore so I say watch it and enjoy!
Fall Down Dead (2007) * 1/2 (out of 4)Silly horror film about a young woman (Dominique Swain) who witnesses The Picasso Killer (Udo Kier) who has been stalking the city. She's able to get away and call police but there's a rolling blackout sweeping the city so she must stay inside a locked building with a group of other people and of course the killer gets in trying to get rid of them all. FALL DOWN DEAD is yet another in a seemingly endless string of slasher pictures where you get the feeling of deja vu from start to finish. I will say that director Jon Keeyes manages to make the film look very professional and I thought he handled the opening sequence quite well but when you're dealing with a routine screenplay that gives you everything you'd expect and in the order that you'd expect it, there's really nothing anyone could do. The screenplay pretty much goes from A to Z just like you'd expect it to. You know who's going to live. You know who's going to die. You know various twists that's going to happen in the story. You know pretty much everything including how a victim is going to escape the killer and reach her car only to have it not start. It's really too bad that the screenplay goes for the routine and cliché moments from start to finish because I think a rewrite could have made for a better result. Another problem is the story itself, which never really makes too much sense. The police inside this building want to protect the Swain character because she can identify the killer. However, instead of leaving the building and taking her somewhere they decide to just wait around inside the building with the killer instead of leaving and getting her to safety. The excuse given is that the cops want to call a police squad in but after the first two or three people get slaughtered it looks like they'd just leave. Another annoying thing is various scenes that just make you want to jump through the screen and punch the characters. Everyone is fighting for their lives yet it seems each one of them has time to stop what they're doing, talk about marriage, their past and their plans for the future. These moments are just so annoying that you really wonder why no one in the production stood up and asked what was going on. Performances are decent at best with Swain certainly doing the best work here. Kier is also effective in his part as that great voice does wonders. David Carradine appears in one of his many 15-minute cameos that he got after KILL BILL. Even he is featured in a rather stupid sequence where Swain in banging on the office door and screaming for her life. They have her playing terror, the music is that pure thriller mode and yet they have Carradine playing the scene for laughs. It just doesn't add up but then again not much does in this film.
A metropolitan city is in the grip of fear when rolling blackouts bring out a serial killer dubbed The Picasso Killer (Udo Kier).The only thing that makes this film worth watching is Udo Kier, who is always a treat for horror fans. Besides that, you might enjoy the sex scene or a quick shower scene, but the story itself is completely lame.At no point does the film explain why he is called the Picasso Killer. Now, you might say, "Well, duh, look at the artwork he creates." But we as the audience know that he is an artist. Do the police know that? If so, it is never established. He carves up his victims, but that hardly makes him unique.Although this film was made in 2007, it did not receive a DVD release until June 2011. The reason, most likely, is because it is a bit of a stinker. They were lucky to get Image to pick it up. It is nice to see David Carradine again (since he has been dead a few years) but this role is one of his absolute worst. A deaf, forgetful old man? Really? What a waste of an iconic screen legend.Why does it take place on Christmas Eve? This never ties in the story and I do not even recall seeing so much as a snowflake. Making this a Christmas movie makes even less sense than making "Die Hard" a Christmas movie. And why is it called "Fall Down Dead"? Did anyone fall down dead? No.Check this out if you need a fix of Udo Kier, otherwise just run for the hills if someone tries to slip this in your DVD player.
A smart mix of Panic Room and I know What You Did Last Summer, Fall Down Dead is a gripping Hitchcock-style thriller with scares to spare.A metropolitan city holds its breath on Christmas Eve as a series of rolling blackouts lure out an elusive killer. A man who makes art out of grizzly murder .Hunted by the police and dubbed by the press, "The Picasso Killer" (Udo Kier) he stalks the dark alleyways in search of the missing component to his greatest masterpiece: the perfect skin.His obsession unknowingly manifests itself in the form of Christie (Dominique Swain), a single mother working the late shift at an all night dinner to earn the money to move her daughter out of the city. At shifts end their paths collide and Picasso will stop at nothing to immortalize her in his art.Christie takes shelter in the nearby Hitchcock Building under the protection of bumbling security guard Wade (David Carradine). When the real police arrive in the form of two of duty Detectives Stefan and Lawrence (Mehmet Gunser and R. Keith Harris) things seem to be under control. But art will not be deter4ed and the world will see his skill perfected.Now, locked in a skyscraper without any communication they must band together before one by one they are picked off. But everyone else is just a sketch. Picasso has found his masterpiece, with his blade as a brush he will make Christie immortal.