Recent Reviews
Film Review: Death By Engagement
By Rick Danford
Nov 4, 2005, 21:23

"Stay Single". Words to live by. It's also the catch phrase used to promote the Feature Film, Death by Engagement. This well made, sharp witted film had a lot going for it when it came across my desk. It starred a plethora of hotties including Christa Campbell of 2001 Maniacs, Iyari Limon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sascha Knopf of Shallow Hal, Julian Berlin of Domino and Edie Dearing of Boardwalk Poets. It even stars one of my personal old school favorites, P.J. Soles of Halloween, Stripes and Carrie fame. It was Totally cool to see P.J. on screen again. That lineup alone had me heating up the popcorn and throwing the DVD into my player as fast as possible. What I was treated to was a pretty entertaining Horror film. Kind of a Halloween meets Porky's. I know that's kind of hard to imagine, but what do you want? It's the first thing that popped into my mind.

The story centers on a wedding ring that has dire consequences for whoever wears it. The film opens with a bride and her bridesmaid running away from a wedding and leaving her groom at the alter. The problem with this is the groom has a reputation for having a vicious temper. A temper that sees him chasing the fleeing ladies down and clubbing them to death in their escape vehicle. He is still pounding away on the back of the brides head when he is shot dead by an investigating officer. Now this officer had problems of his own prior to coming across this mess. He had a girlfriend who wants to get married and would only accept a rock he couldn't afford. Well lo and behold, after killing the groom our civil servant spies the beautiful ring the comatose bride is wearing on her bloody hand. Needless to say he exchanges the ring for the cheapo fake ring he purchased and nobody's the wiser. Well later that day when he puts the ring on his girlfriend’s finger, this action reanimates our dead groom. It seems he doesn't like anyone else wearing his hand me down ring and he aims to kill anyone who has the nerve to put it on. Therein lays the premise of the film as our dead groom is awaken from his slumber every time the ring is placed on an unlucky girl's finger. When he shows up to take care of business the ring is missing and has moved on to someone else. Well the bodies begin piling up as two detectives begin following the trail that leads back to our good friend P.J. She is the mother of our dead groom and keeps his lifeless body in his childhood bedroom. That alone is pretty creepy. The film is well made and well acted. I especially liked the performance of Jeff Parise as Bobo. The dialogue was well written and mixed laughs in with some pretty solid tension. I felt the film could have shaved about 20 minutes off with some tighter editing but overall it was a very enjoyable film. There's plenty of blood and nudity to satisfy those fans and a pretty well written story to satisfy everyone else. When this movie finally gets the distribution it deserves I highly recommend it. It had a throw back feel like some of the better 80’s horror films. Of course bringing back P.J. and getting her involved in the fun only seemed like justice was served.        

http://www.deathbyengagement.net/