Dead Air

Breaker! Breaker!  Hello out there!  Anyone home?

Dead Air begins with a blur.  It is in the blurry lines where we stay as our story comes into focus - with the sound of a gun going off!  This is a movie about something revealing itself from the past and, for one widowed man, the consequences lying there within, still beating and very, very raw.

"The dialogue here is borderline intoxicating and, thanks to the performances from the adults in the room, makes the supernatural elements (which happen much later than expected) much more believable and unshakable"


 

Directed by Kevin Hicks (Eternal Room; Doppel; Behind the Door; Paranormal Evidence) and written by producer Vicky Hicks, Dead Air is about the darkness that hangs in between the shadows of our memories.  And, as most things are better off left alone, these shadows should not be disturbed.

But that’s not what happens is it?  

William (Hicks) is suffering more than he cares to admit.  With two daughters of his own to care for in the wake of his wife’s passing to leukemia, his life is always on the go, go, GO!  But when he begins to clean out the home of his newly deceased mother, one of his father’s neglected belongings opens up a bunch of new opportunities for him . . . 

. . . like talking to the dead.  And that’s just the beginning as William discovers a long distance friendship with a dark secret of its own.Dead Air

Freestyle Digital Media has announced the cable, satellite and Digital HD release of Dead Air, from filmmaking team Kevin Hicks and Vickie Hicks of Chinimble Lore.  The film might be low in budget, but its call numbers handle the thriller elements solidly as an old ham radio brings William in contact with a very strange and very paranoid woman named Eva (Vicky Hicks).  She’s somehow familiar to him, but that’s part of the mystery involved in this flick and, no, you don't know where this one is heading.

He discovers that they both live in a small town in New York state, but - as she begins to warm up to him - something else is communicating with William and it wants to grab him by the flannel and drag him into the shadows.  Now, he finds himself pulled between two different worlds as an awful truth is revealed and, once unleashed, he cannot escape its clutches.

Dead Air is a movie which works because of its complicated characters, especially in the exchange between William and his psychiatrist Dr. Jennings (Chris Xaver, Invisible Ink) .  The dialogue here is borderline intoxicating and, thanks to the performances from the adults in the room, makes the supernatural elements (which happen much later than expected) much more believable and unshakable.  This is not a movie for the gore hounds in the audience. They will walk out and dismiss the film as a wasted effort, but it is their loss as this dialogue-driven chiller likes to sprinkle clues in the hopes that you can put together just what is happening here. 

The point is that Dead Air is a slow burn of a horror feature for those accustomed to low budget flicks and, as it spins its story in multiple directions that you wouldn’t expect, it succeeds on many levels.  Co-starring Lucca Iocovetti, Madison Skodzinsky & Mackenzie Skodzinsky, and Bruce Levitt, Dead Air will be released on digital and cable VOD platforms on February 19th from Freestyle Digital Media.

Don’t talk to strangers!

3/5 stars

Blu-ray Details

Home Video Distributor:
Available on Blu-ray

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Subtitles
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Film Details

Dead Air

MPAA Rating: PG-13 on appeal for crude sexual content and language.
Runtime:
90 mins
Director
: Kevin Hicks
Writer:
Vickie Hicks
Cast:
Kevin Hicks, Vickie Hicks, Chris Xaver
Genre
: Horror | Thriller
Tagline:
Some Secrets Should Stay Hidden.
Memorable Movie Quote:
Distributor:
Freestyle Digital Media
Official Site:
Release Date:
February 19, 2021
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:

Synopsis: A dead father's recently discovered radio sends his adult son on a twisting journey that slowly unravels a dark, unimaginable secret.

Art

Dead Air