Dead By Dawn is a Polish slasher film that follows the story of a group of actors who are rehearsing a play at the strange and mysterious Heissenhoff theatre. As they do, they start to be picked off one by one by a masked individual who reveals that there is more to the theatre, the play, and even the murders than meets the eye.

Writer and director Dawid Torrone sets the audience up for a classic slasher – a bleak opening kill, a group of 20-somethings turning up to a theatre with a dark history, all having sex and smoking during their breaks from rehearsal, and a mysterious masked killer ready to take them down one by one. This is where the movie really shines; the kills are fantastically gory and will have audiences wincing multiple times. There is one particularly drawn-out kill involving a nail and an eye that stood out as one of the best kills you will have seen in a while. It also has to be mentioned that the mask that the killer wears is incredibly cool – far from your bog standard store-bought masks, this incredible bit of costume design really shines on screen and proves that bigger is better. You can clearly see that Torrone has taken a lot of direct influences from various giallo horror films, with nods to the likes of Suspiria and A Bay of Blood, as well as a fantastic use of colour and some beautiful shots, which give the film a fresher feel than your regular slasher.

However, unfortunately, beyond the kills and some cool visuals, Dead By Dawn doesn't offer much more to the table. It feels a lot longer than the runtime actually is, and a lot of that is down to the almost hamfisted story, which really lost its way towards the end. There wasn't enough pull for me to care about the characters or the motivation of the killer, and as a result which I was just patiently waiting for the next kill to happen, hoping it would be bloody and gorier than the last. It's a shame because some surreal dance sequences had potential, but instead, it just felt disjointed and like watching two movies at the same time. Besides this, Dead By Dawn is a fun slasher film that really goes all out for its kills, and it's killer – like any half decent slasher should do.

Dead By Dawn had its Northern UK premiere at Grimmfest 2025 on 12 October