In a decaying mansion in England, the former Lord Donald Brocklebank (Roger Lloyd Pack) lives with his wife Nancy (Kate Fahy),who is very ill, and their retarded and schizophrenic teenage son James (Leo Bill) that needs to use several pills to calm down. Donald is completely broken, apparently for paying for Nancy's medical treatment, and has been pressed to see his manor.

One day, Donald needs to travel early in the morning to London for a business and he summons Nurse Mary (Sarah Ball). However, James decides to prove to his father that he is capable to take care of his mother and he closes all the accesses to the house and locks himself with his mother inside the house. He gives an overdose of pills to his mother expecting to heal her and Nancy dies. In the funeral, there is another problem with James driving Donald insane.

"The Living and the Dead" is a harrowing and disturbing journey to insanity. The screenplay entwines reality and madness, past and present, in an environment of nightmare and the viewer needs to be very concentrated in the film to understand the story.

Leo Bill and Kate Fahy deliver top-notch performances and the camera work is amazing. This is the first work of Simon Rumley that I see and I noted in IMDb that many viewers have not understood the unpleasant journey to hell and insanity of Donald Brocklebank that is indicated to specific audiences. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Distúrbio Fatal" ("Fatal Disorder")

I blind bought this mistakenly thinking it was some kind of zombie flick (put the words 'living' and 'dead' in a film's title and I automatically think of zombies),but I couldn't have been more wrong. The Living and the Dead actually deals with the all-too-real horrors of schizophrenia, and the terrible impact that such a condition can have on a family.

Roger Lloyd-Pack plays Lord Donald Brocklebank (not 'bottlebank', as I first thought),financially challenged owner of a run-down stately home, father of grown-up schizophrenic son James (Leo Bill),and husband to critically ill, bed-ridden Nancy (Kate Fahy). When Donald leaves the family home for a few days to sort out finances, James—keen to show his father how capable he can be—takes it upon himself to look after his mother, barricading the house against her nurse.

Of course, James proves to be a far from ideal carer, unable to adequately look after himself, let alone his mother; as time goes on, his schizophrenia goes from bad to worse, exacerbated by a careless approach to self-medication. Slowly, he becomes a danger to both himself and his mother.

Although The Living and the Dead is far from what one would traditionally term as 'horror', trust me when I say that what writer/director Simon Rumley depicts in this film is terrifying. Watching a person gradually descend into a personal hell and turn against his mother is harrowing enough, but there is also the suffering endured by Nancy due to her own illness: in one memorably nasty moment, the poor woman suffers the humiliation of soiling her bed, being carried to the bathroom covered in her own crap, and stripped naked by her son. Another very unsettling scene shows James injecting himself with anti-psychotic drugs, jamming the needles into his arm, leaving them jutting from his skin, and then having a turn and knocking them sideways. Yowch!

In a bold move by Rumley, the story then enters territory that REALLY messes with the mind: the visuals become totally chaotic and it becomes unclear as to what is reality and what is delusion. It also emerges that the story is being told using the 'unreliable narrator' style, coming from several viewpoints and casting doubt on the accuracy of all we have seen. This 'alternate perception' technique, which implies that Donald may be the one who is mentally ill, not his son, might lead to lots of confusion and uncertainty, but since we're dealing with the subject of schizophrenia, it seems an apt treatment.

So... to summarise: no ambling undead, but plenty of ambiguity; no gut munching, but a visceral experience nonetheless; and no bullets to the brain, but enough emotionally distressing and downbeat content to scramble the viewer's mind for a while.

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

Unwritten rule in horror #1: ALWAYS remain somewhat skeptical whenever you rent a movie of which the DVD cover is literally bespattered with praising quotes from acclaimed horror magazines and/or listings of awards won at Festivals no one ever heard of. This might be an indication that the distributors need extra reasons to convince people into renting/buying their film, because the plot summary and the still images on the back of the box aren't convincing enough. The box of "The Living and the Dead" features quotes stating "Brilliant", "Disturbing", "Harrowing" and "The Greatest Film Ever Made", but personally I don't think the film deserves any of those compliments. The tagline, on the other hand, is very truthful. It says "Terror by good intentions" and not only does this simple sentence summarize the whole plot, it also accurately describes the entire film production! The story revolves on the physical, financial and mental downfall of a once-eminent family of three living in a massive mansion in rural Britain. The father is nearly bankrupt, the mother is terminally ill and the twenty-something son James is mentally handicapped. When the father is forced to travel to London to solve his financial issues, James insists to look after his mother instead of an expensive nurse. Naturally his intentions are good, but his lack of realism and intellect make it a long period of pure agony and humiliation for his poor old mother. Ah, good intentions… Writer/director Simon Rumley obviously had plenty. The concept of the film is original and fairly engaging, but it's too little to revolve a whole movie around. "The Living and the Dead" suffers from far too many dreadfully dull moments and Rumley only seems to fill those moments up with lame visual gimmicks and pointless padding footage. He particularly seems to be fond of the fast-forward filming style. Very often we just see accelerated images of James running up and down the house for no real reason other than to kill a few extra minutes of playtime or to set up the viewers with a dreadful headache. If anything, "The Living and the Dead" is the type of film that can make even the calmest person nervous and irritated. The pointlessness of this film is really frustrating, good intentions or no good intentions. The finale is highly implausible, the film honestly isn't that shocking as it thinks it is and Rumley's atypical directing skills almost feel pretentious and arrogant. Seriously, you're not Werner Herzog or David Lynch, mister.