“SICK OF WAITING FOR ‘EVIL DEAD 4’? CHECK OUT ‘DAMNED BY DAWN’” – QUIET EARTH.

A huge crowd-pleaser at the Film4 FrightFest in 2010, the film the festival’s organisers called “the coolest, scariest movie from Australia since ‘Undead’”, Damned By Dawn comes to DVD on 7th March 2011 courtesy of Momentum Pictures and is guaranteed to delight horror movie fans with a yearning for the type of inventive and entertaining horror-comedy shenanigans not seen since Sam Raimi’s ‘Evil Dead’ trilogy.

The debut feature from writer-director Brett Anstey (Atomic Spitballs), Damned By Dawn earned itself a ‘Three Skulls’ (out of four) review in horror movie bible Fangoria, where it was praised as “serious fun…” with the further proviso, “And you can’t knock a film with flying skeletons.”

Prompted by the arrival of a mysterious package from her terminally ill grandmother (Dawn Klingberg), Claire (Renee Willner) drags her reluctant new boyfriend, Paul (Danny Alder), off to meet her family at their remote country home where she hopes she will discover the motivations behind the unexpected gift.

Things seem to be going well until Claire’s heavily medicated gran begins rambling on about a female spirit she is expecting to come in the night to escort her body into the afterlife. That night, as a violent thunderstorm rocks the house, the family is awoken by a succession of piercing, otherworldly shrieks, which prove to be the cries of a banshee. As the terrifying sounds ring out, the dead are summoned to rise again, so beginning a waking nightmare for Claire and her family as the banshee and her army of the undead unleash their fury upon the living.

“A remarkably effective piece of visual spookery, both atmospheric and blood-splattered, with an evocative script, and ghostly FX” (Undead Backbrain), Damned By Dawn is about as entertaining as independent horrors movies get, combining shocks, gore and sly wit in equal measure.

Damned By Dawn (cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£15.99) by Momentum Pictures on 7th March 2011. Special Features include: audio commentary by director and crew; making of featurette; trailer; optional English subtitles for the hard of hearing.