The Dead Thing – Review | Shudder (4/5)

THE DEAD THING on Shudder is a new Dating Horror movie coming to the streaming platform on Valentine’s Day. It starts out cute enough but turns quite brutal. This is a horror mystery you can interpret or enjoy at face value. Read our full The Dead Thing movie review here!

THE DEAD THING is a new Shudder horror movie coming out on Valentine’s Day 2025. It’s a dating horror movie, which may not be the biggest niche, but one that does exist. Movies like Run Sweetheart Run, It Follows or even Starry Eyes are the first examples that come to mind for me. Because I enjoyed both, as I did this one.

This new Shudder dating horror movie has a sweet beginning and you just might forget that you’re watching a horror movie. I assure you that this will not last. By the end of its 94-minute runtime, you will be all too aware that this is very much a horror movie.

Continue reading our full The Dead Thing movie review below. Find it on Shudder from February 14, 2025.

Finding and losing “the one”

When The Dead Thing opens, it’s with a young woman, Alex, going from hookup to hookup. This is definitely her prerogative, but she does not seem happy in life at all. In fact, she doesn’t even seem to enjoy these hookups much. Instead, she’s going through the motions and if a guy wants to see her again, she’s quick to block him.

She’s searching for something. Love as much as purpose, and when a dating app swipe leads her to meet Kyle, both may actually happen. Alex (Blu Hunt) and Kyle (Ben Smith-Petersen) meet and the attraction is instant but goes deeper than just the physical connection. They actually talk and laugh together.

As their date ends after many hours of both physical and emotional connection, Alex seems truly happy. So does Kyle. However, she never hears from him again and can’t seem to get a hold of him. When she learns why this is, she suddenly sees him again.

Dark, deep, and scary

When Kyle sees Alex, he is the charming man she fell for that one night. He’s clearly crazy about her, too, but he has no idea who she is. This may be related to what she learned about him, but is she ready to continue pursuing him? Should she?

Well, The Dead Thing is a horror movie and the title isn’t too uplifting, so I’m sure you know the answer. But maybe love and finding “the one” is enough to conquer any obstacle?!

As you watch The Dead Thing on Shudder – and I really hope you do – you’ll quickly see things that feel very familiar. Patterns in behavior that are not good at all. This will lead many viewers (myself included) to start reading into the symbolism. And you absolutely can and should, I feel.

However, I want to point out that this movie works so well that you can also enjoy it if you take everything at face value. For some viewers, this may even be easier as it goes to places that are dark and quite scary.

As anyone who has ever been (or is) in love will probably recognize, being in love is a sort of madness.

As the lovers in The Dead Thing, Alex and Kyle experience this in an extreme way. Again, this is a horror movie. As such, we see them descend into obsession, lust, dependence, and infatuation. Something that can become a deep and lasting love, but is still very new, and makes them lose all sense of time and place.

Watch The Dead Thing on Shudder

The director of The Dead Thing is Elric Kane, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Webb Wilcoxen. This is the US feature film directing debut of Elric Kane, which makes me have very high hopes (and expectations) for what comes next from this filmmaker.

Blu Hunt (The New Mutants, Another Life) is the absolute star of this horror movie, and she is perfectly cast as Alex, the modern young woman living life through her phone while searching for real-life connections. As the man she falls for, we have an equally perfectly cast Ben Smith-Petersen. He’s worked in stunts more than acting, but hopefully that changes now.

Along with these two stars of the movie, we also see Katherine Hughes as Alex’s friend and roommate, John Karna (Dirty John) and Joey Millin as her colleagues, and Emily Joy Lemus as someone who works at Kyle’s workplace.

This new horror movie premiered at Fantasia Film Fest 2024 (on July 26, 2024) and went on to screen at many other film festivals. Including FirghtFest in the UK and the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. Now it’s coming to Shudder and the timing could not have been better than a Valentine’s Day release date.

The Dead Thing starts streaming on Shudder on Friday, February 14, 2025.

Details

Director: Elric Kane
Screenwriters: Elric Kane, Webb Wilcoxen
Cast: Katherine Hughes, Blu Hunt, John Karna, Brennan Mejia, Joey Millin, Ben Smith-Petersen, Aerial Washington