The Worst Film Ever

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

The Living and the Dead is set in rural England where ex-Lord Donald Brocklebank (Roger Lloyd-Pack) lives in the stately manor house Longleigh House with his gravely ill wife Nancy (Kate Fahy) & mentally ill son James (Leo Bill). After a phone-call Donald needs to go away & James becomes convinced that he can care for his sick mother Nancy & resists all attempts from local nurse Mary (Susan Bell) to help, mentally unstable himself James cannot cope with caring for his mother & she becomes even worse after several incidents of abuse & neglect....This English production was written, co-produced & directed by Simon Rumley & is not at all what I expected, listed as a horror film The Living and the Dead sounds like it should be full of zombies like a cheap rip-off of The Night of the Living Dead (1968) but instead is a serious drama about mental health issues with a little smattering of violence thrown in to cause a bit of controversy. The first thing to say is that script is extremely bleak, depressing & has absolutely no feel good moments at all & as a result I found the finished film rather depressing to watch. Dedicated to the memory of writer director Rumley's parents who died of a heart attack & cancer within six months of each other one can tell he brings his dark mood to the film with a really bleak feeling & lots of depressing moments like James inability to care for his mother which leads to some nasty consequences of abuse & neglect. At just under an hour & twenty minutes the whole film feels a bit pointless, it lacks any sort of forward momentum & some of the situations are simply silly, the setting up of an operating theatre in a dusty all hall, a killer being allowed to attend a funeral completely unguarded & with a knife no less which does indicate that maybe the whole film is actually the insane fantasies & hallucinations of one deeply disturbed & schizophrenic man but it's never made entirely clear & it never quite comes together. Either way I just didn't enjoy watching The Living and the Dead because it's so damned dark & bleak & left me feeling somewhat down myself which is maybe what director Rumley intended but if I want to get depressed I will just look at my most recent bank statement & save myself an hour & twenty minutes...Set almost entirely in the same single location The Living and the Dead is well made with simple yet effective photography although I could do without all the annoying fast forward manic scenes featuring James running around the house as well as some of the music choices. Despite the title The Living and the Dead doesn't feature any zombies & is not a horror film, it has no real scares or tension or gore to speak of. The location used as Longleigh House was in fact Tottenham House in Wiltshire here in England which was once a World War 1 hospital, the Hawtrey's school for young men & more recently a drug rehabilitation clinic.With a supposed budget of about £650,000 this is well made & looks nice enough but I still didn't enjoy watching it, sorry. The acting is very good from the three main leads although I must admit I found Leo Bill's somewhat frantic performance a little annoying at times.The Living and the Dead is a really bleak film that I think builds up to a twist ending that tries to be clever but it's a little bit too ambiguous & random to tell for sure. Basically I didn't have any fun watching this & surely that's what watching films is all about? If they don't at least entertain then what's the point?

I just finished watching two seasons of The Vicar of Dibley, and I thought I would see Roger Lloyd-Pack (Bartie Crouch in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) in something more serious.He is a country gentleman whose son (Leo Bill, Alice in Wonderland, Kinky Boots) is schizophrenic and whose wife (Kate Fahy) is dying. He has to leave home, so he hires a nurse (Sarah Ball) to watch both of them.The son locks out the nurse and cares for his mother. This proves to be extremely embarrassing to Mom. And, if two pills are prescribed, then taking a dozen or more will get you better quicker. Mom went from embarrassment to fear.The sinking into schizophrenia is disturbing and frenetic and may upset some viewers, but it is an emotion packed film that bears watching.

I first heard about this film by reading a very brief description in a magazine about new DVD releases.The cover art was captivating and dark.At first I thought it was a ghost story or some other type of horror movie before I realized it was a psychological drama. I especially liked Leo Bells acting playing a very mentally challenged young man.He moves in a unique way because of the characters mental state. The super fast motion of the son off his medication gave me an adrenalin rush.It was effective but hard on the eyes.It was a nice contrast to all the other characters in their normal state moving slowly through life.It seemed very isolated and lonely in that big mansion and I could see why the father needed a break from it all and left.Also convincing was Kate Fahy playing the disabled mother.The movie had it's share of confusing moments. Just when you think it's over it starts over and you are not sure if what happened actually did or if it was a dream or delusion.One minute the wife is confined to a bed and the next she is playing caregiver to James.And at times it's hard to tell whether it's James who is ill or his father Donald as it flashes between 2 different reality's.Or it is years later and an aging Donald is remembering his past.I will have to watch it again to try and figure it out better.

How could anybody have not seen through this sham of writing?! 1. This man-child would have been locked up YEARS ago! 2. Who, in God's name, let's someone in that condition be responsible for their own medication? 3. The "Lord" leaves the mansion BEFORE the nurse arrives? Ridiculous!! 4. After killing his mother, he's still loose? Then, apparently not searched, he still has the knife at the funeral!!! I don't care how bad off the family were financially, in their position this neglect would never have been realistic. I literally wanted to confiscate the world's copy's and destroy them!! This was LAUGHABLY bad. Infintile in it's ridiculous depictions. Pathetic!