Deadline (2009 film)

Deadline
Directed by	Sean McConville
Produced by	Roger Betterton
Written by	Sean McConville
Starring	Brittany Murphy Thora Birch Marc Blucas
Music by	Carlos José Alvarez
Cinematography	Ross Richardson
Editing by	Chris Levitus
Studio	Enso Entertainment KRU Studios Films In Motion
Distributed by	First Look Pictures
Release date(s)	October 2009 (UK, Aus) December 1, 2009 (US)^[1]
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States Malaysia
Language	English

Deadline is a horror thriller film directed by Sean McConville starring Brittany Murphy and Thora Birch.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Release
4 Genre
5 References
6 External links

Plot

Alice Evans (Brittany Murphy) needs to complete a screenplay, which she has not finished due to a psychological breakdown after her boyfriend tried to kill her. With the deadline for the screenplay approaching, she accepts an offer by a producer friend to let her stay in a Victorian-style home he has recently purchased so she can focus on her work. She insists on staying there alone, and her friend Rebecca (Tammy Blanchard) reluctantly agrees and leaves her there. Alice begins to hear strange noises in the house and becomes convinced the house is haunted by the ghost of a murdered woman.^[2] She begins searching the house and finds a collection of videotapes in the attic featuring a mysterious young couple played by Thora Birch and Marc Blucas. At first the tapes just show the couple lovingly talking about their new baby and life together in the house. But the more Alice watches, the more disturbed the husband gets. He becomes convinced his wife is seeing someone else and that the baby may not be his, even though his wife assures him shes never been with any one else. One tape shows him filming his wife as she sleeps muttering about how pretty she is. Alice also watches one of her own tapes of herself and her Rebecca (before her boyfriend tried to kill her) and it is strongly implied they are more than just friends. Alice keeps watching the video tapes of the couple and asks Rebecca to do research about the couple for her. Rebecca, worried about her friend, offers to come visit but Alice insists she is fine. As Alice keeps watching the tapes, we learn the reason her boyfriend tried to kill her. Alice was also pregnant and her boyfriend became convinced the baby wasn't his. He tried to drown her in the bathtub. Alice survived, but lost the baby. This is why she feels so connected to this woman on the tape. She also starts to see the ghost of the woman around the house. When Alice gets to the last tape she see's that the husband did kill his wife by drowning her in the tub and then hung himself. Alice then gets a call from her ex who apologizes for what he did. Alice then sees a shadow in the house and becomes convinced he's inside with her. But as she starts to run away she sees the end of the tape which shows the husband actually survived his hanging when his mother cut him down just in time. She then reports the couple missing. Alice then comes faces to faces with the husband who thinks shes his wife and tries to drown her in the bathtub, but he sees the reflection of his dead wife. This scares him so much he falls over the stair railing. The ghost now lets the water out of the bathtub and saves Alice. Later Rebecca comes over and finds Alice still siting in the bath tub talking about the ghost. As Rebecca dries her off she finds the screen play that Alice has been working on all this time and discovers it is word by word the entire story written down, meaning everything Alice saw was all in her head. Rebecca then promises she will never leave Alice alone again and puts her to bed. She then goes down stairs where we see there is no body but there is a video camera. She picks it up and sees a tape Alice shot of her sleeping that looks exactly like the scene the husband shot earlier of his wife, right down to Alice saying everything the husband said.^[3]

Cast

Brittany Murphy as Alice Evans
Thora Birch as Lucy Woods
Tammy Blanchard as Rebecca
Marc Blucas as David Woods
Claudia Troll as David's Mother
Michael Piscitelli as Ben

Release

The movie premiered in Australia and the UK in October 2009, and in the US on December 1, 2009.^[1] After Murphy's death on December 20, 2009 Redbox recalled movie posters which were displayed on kiosks around the country.^[4]^[5] The poster depicted Murphy's character sitting in bathtub with a dead version of the other female lead character's reflection in the mirror.^[6]