DVD Reviewed by Brittany Burchett

A split tends to occur within families or groups of friends who watch movies together, especially as the temperature begins to drop. There are always some people who think that the cold winter night is the perfect time to curl up under a blanket and watch Pyscho or Scream; something that will send figurative shivers down their spine to match the literal ones.  But then there’s the other half, the people who say, “I don’t care if it’s 110 degrees or -10 degrees, I want to watch Dirty Dancing or Love Actually because I don’t want to be scared.” So this month, I’m using my role as movie reviewer to solve your domestic conflicts. Go rent Dead Again, from 1991. It’s a love story – or actually two love stories, one in the past and one in the present – joined with a murder mystery. While it’s not horror, it’s full of suspense and there are one or two terrifying scenes. But that’s intermingled the joy of falling in love.

Dead Again is based around the concept of reincarnation. Half of the movie is told in black and white: the love story of a composer, Roman Strauss (Kenneth Branagh), and his wife Margaret (Emma Thompson) in the late 1940s. They meet, marry and live happily until Grace was murdered with a pair of scissors. Roman maintained his innocence, but was still convicted and executed.

Now we’re back in the 1990s (when the film was made, so present-day). An amnesiac woman, who does not speak and has horrible nightmares, is staying at a local church (this role also played by Thompson). Mike Church is a private detective who specializes in finding missing persons (this role also played by Branagh). He takes the amnesiac woman in for a few days, and they begin to fall in love. The woman discovers her name is Grace, and starts consulting with an antique dealer/psychic (Derek Jacobi) to try and find out about her past. But when she discovers the story of Margaret and Roman, she realizes that she’s still in danger. Someone killed her in the past – they have to figure out whom, before it happens again. And if it was Roman, is Mike Church going to somehow be the one to kill her once again?

These are the questions Grace and Roman try frantically to solve. Along the way, they try to regain Grace’s memory: her sense of whom she is, and what happened to her that made her lose that. But despite the threat that hangs over them, they have sweet scenes falling once again into a love they never completely lost.

Branagh directed this film as well as acting in it. He’s fabulously skilled on both ends of the camera, although he’s never subdued. He’s got a dramatic style, but this is fairly dramatic source material, so it works well. As the moody composer Roman, he’s just perfect as a man who’s troubled by the lack of success his work has found. Mike Church completely different – an average, everyday guy overwhelmed by the strangeness of the mystery he’s been swept into. He sticks with it, though, because he cares about Grace. I was very impressed with Branagh’s work creating two such different characters within one film.

Emma Thompson has acted opposite Branagh in several films. He’s a strong actor, and she’s a good match for him because she’s equally talented. She adds lightness and humor to the scenes in the past, which are somewhat heavy with Roman’s depression. And she makes a compelling Grace. Her vulnerability and the ease with which she could be victimized are clearly shown. As people ask her questions she simply cannot answer, she reacts with a frightened confusion so well transmitted through the TV screen that I was surprised at unnerved the scene made me.  But Grace needs someone she can trust, and so she opens herself to Mike’s gentle brand of companionship.

I have to give the directorial work the biggest gold star for genius. We open on a black-and-white scene, Roman’s execution. Soon after Grace screams herself out of a nightmare. The choice to use black-and-white film for the past means that the mood feels darker. Violence is impending here, but the characters don’t know it. There is more light in the present, which is appropriate – the characters need light to search through the past. If the past is going to live again, someone will die again. And since Margaret Strauss was murdered with scissors, there are scissors everywhere you look in this movie – at least forty pairs. The body count doesn’t rack up. It doesn’t need to. Branagh gets us conditioned – we see a pair of scissors and our hearts jump, just because we don’t know what might happen. That’s an authentic feeling of suspense he’s created, and I think it’s better than the shock-and-blood murder movies that come out so often now.

And if you’re trying to convince a spouse or friend, there are two love stories, as I said. Roman and Margaret actually meet and marry in the 1940s, and it’s a breathtaking pair of scenes.  There’s something for everyone here. Try it this winter.

Brittany Burchett is a freelance writer for Boom! She graduated in 2010 with a degree in English from NC State University and has two complete, unpublished novels. If you would like to recommend something for her to review, offer an opinion on a review, ask a question about her novels, or just say hello, her e-mail address is britt.burchett10@gmmail.com.