One-in-five adults in the US experience mental ill health. It’s an incredibly debilitating illness to deal with but even harder to watch a loved one battle through it whilst you stand by feeling helpless. Anything can trigger these feelings of worthlessness, loneliness and useless, but depression and anxiety often stem back to one particular event. Often in childhood. In Chris Bavota and Lee Paula Springer new film, Dead Dicks, we encounter a pair of siblings who have dealt with loss and trauma in different ways.
Becca (Jillian Harris) is excited and anxious. The nursing student has been accepted on her dream course. However, it means moving away and that’s where her problems lie. Her older brother, Ritchie (Heston Horwin) is a complete mess and she’s worried about telling him. When she receives a panicked phone call, she rushes to his apartment. Only to find him dead……and alive?
Dead Dicks doesn’t exactly start-out in the most auspicious way. Bavota and Springer’s film is initially a bit shaky and takes a while to find its feet. When it does eventually hit it’s stride it’s a sci-fi film full of clever ideas and neat twists. Indeed, the two stars also grow into their roles. Creating an authentic and believable chemistry whilst grounds the central premise. Dead Dicks is an ingenious and imaginative slice of genre cinema.
Dead Dicks screened at Grimmfest.
