Anthony DiBlasi is a name that'll sound familiar to fans of Clive Barker, because he's served as producer on a few of the author's recent big screen adaptations, most notably the terrible Midnight Meat Train and the surprisingly good Book Of Blood. Continuing to return to the Barker well, DiBlasi makes his directorial debut with Dread, a short story originally published in volume two of Barker's short story collections, The Books Of Blood, way back in 1984.

A film student named Stephen (Jackson Rathbone) bums a cigarette from a psychology student named Quaid (Shaun Evans) and after a conversation about their ethics class they strike up an odd friendship. They head out for a drink and Stephen tells Quaid about how his brother died in a drunk driving accident when he was fifteen years old and how this has scared him for life. The conversation evolves and a day or two later the pair are collaborating on a thesis project that will combine Quaid's philosophy studies with Stephen's filmmaking studies. They intend to interview people on camera about what their greatest fears are and why. Stephen asks his only other close friend, Cheryl (Hanne Steen), to edit the project and soon enough they're off and running. As Stephen and Cheryl try to figure out where their relationship stands, Quaid, who also paints, has Abby (Laura Donnelly) over to model for him. She's initially too shy about it, thanks to a birthmark that covers much of her body, but when her advances on Stephen don't go the way she'd hoped they would, she accepts Quaid's offer.

Things all change, however, when Cheryl volunteers to discuss her greatest fear on camera and reveals that she's appalled by meat because her father, who worked at a slaughter house, would sexually abuse her after coming home from work and smelling like blood. Quaid sees this as the evolution that their project should be taking, and insists that they try and capture better, more traumatic stories together, but is wary of talking about his greatest fears with anyone, despite his insistence that they all need to 'face the beast.'

As Quaid's behavior becomes increasingly erratic to the point where he proves himself to be a bit of a sadist, Stephen and Cheryl start trying to distance themselves from him but Quaid's both smart and sinister and isn't going to rest until this project is finished no matter what he has to do or who gets in his way.

While Dread turns into the gory splatter film that a lot of fans probably hoped it would during its final third act, the first hour of build up shows a knack for strong character development, clever foreshadowing and some genuinely good acting. Shaun Evans, who looks like a cross between Willem Dafoe and Gordon Ramsey, goes a little over the top here and there but those concerned by the presence of Jackson Rathbone, best known for the teen-vampire nonsense that is Twilight, will be pleasantly surprised by his mature and believable turn as Stephen. Convincing supporting efforts from Hanne Steen and especially Laura Donnelly round the cast out well in a film that is smart enough to avoid most of the clichés that tend to abound in horror films that revolve around teenagers and early twenty-somethings.

While the conclusion that it eventually reaches is inevitable, predictable even, the buildup is handled really well. The visuals might irk some, as the color scheme that DiBlasi has employed is an unnecessarily grim and dark one and there's barely a shred of natural sunlight to be seen but Dread holds up as the good definitely outweighs the bad.

Video:

Dread arrives on DVD in a 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that generally looks pretty good once you get used to the look of the film. The movie has been intentionally sapped of much of its color and as such it has a very gloomy, dark, dank look to it. There aren't any problems with mpeg compression artifacts or nasty edge enhancement but sometimes the black levels suck out some of the detail that you might expect to see. Skin tones look lifelike enough, if they tend to be a bit on the pale side, but again, this is all obviously intentional on the part of the filmmakers.