On Christmas Eve Frank Harrington (Ray Wise) is driving his family to his in-laws for Christmas and decides to take a shortcut. Things soon start to go wrong, as the road they are on seems neverending and they are terrorised by the ghost of a young woman. The film is described as a 'horror thriller' on its IMDb page, but to me it seemed more like a comedy, mainly due to the hilarious antics of Frank Harrington himself. With constant over-the-top reactions and wise cracks, Ray Wise is hilarious in this film. With his dum daughter, annoying son in-law and crazy wife nagging him all the way, he soon starts to crack up.
The family members soon start disapearing one by one, and the last you see of them are their faces stuck to the back window of a mysterious black hurse which drives past them in part of some morbid death ritual.
The film feels like a horror version of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. By the way they are set up, even the scares seem like they are meant to be funny rather than scary. Dead End isn't to be taken seriously as a horror, even if that was what the director intended.
