Deadline only has four cast members (well, there are 2 others, but they have very brief scenes), and it does a great job utilizing them fully. A majority of the film follows the emotional-wreck that is Alice (Brittany Murphy), a screenplay writer who needs to sequester herself in order to finish her current project. While the other three characters get a good bit of screen time, it is Murphy that really carries the film since it is her haunting and suspense that we experience throughout the film, and if she wasn't believable, then the whole movie would be a wash.
Alice has had a fairly hard year, and without going into to much detail (much of it is related to the movie's twists), her project deadline has come and gone, her secret-girlfriend, Rebecca (Tammy Blanchard), has to leave town for a week because of a sick family member and her ex-husband is about to be released from prison and his vindictive personality leaves Alice feeling very insecure.
When Alice's producer offers her the use of a secluded house for the week of Rebecca's absence so she can finish her project, she sees this as a way to solve several of her problems. Among them is the fact that Ben, Alice's ex, won't know where she is. What Alice doesn't realize is that her week of productive writing will end up being something scarier than anything she has written before.
Almost immediately after being dropped off (she insists that Rebecca take the car), Alice discovers a box of video tapes, and while she does get some writing done, she spends most of her time watching the home videos of the house's previous owners, a married couple who have some big problems. Lucy (Thora Birch, American Beauty) and David (Marc Blucas, TV's Buffy, The Vampire Slayer) Woods appear to have a good relationship, at least at the beginning of the tapes. Lucy's new pregnancy means David has become obsessed with taping everything, but that includes his growing suspicions about Lucy cheating on him.
What's really odd is that, as Alice progresses through the Woods' story, she gets the increasing feeling of being watched, and wet footprints, the bathtub overflowing, doors creaking open and swinging lights do little to put her at ease.
Pretty much everyone in the movie's small cast does a great job. Both Birch and Blucas play off each other well as their relationship gets more and more intense, while Murphy's acting as the hooked voyeur with her own problems carries the film to its climactic conclusion. The only real weak link was by the least-seen of the four characters, Rebecca, but since Blanchard's only real scenes involve dropping Alice off, a couple of phone calls and her returning to the house to get Alice, little damage was done to the overall movie.
Deadline doesn't offer anything major in the way of special features. There is a 10-minute long making-of featurette that touches on the basics of what went into the film, so unless you watch the movie and love it enough to know the little bits that get revealed, it isn't really worth it. In the end, Deadline will appeal most to those who love suspense and don't mind the occasional jump scare. If you aren't a big-time horror fan, then the DVD is a rental at best.
