NINE DEAD is a much better than average mystery/horror genre film. If you like bizarre crime story movies, NINE DEAD will keep you in suspense trying to figure out why a mysterious masked man kidnaps nine victims with seemingly nothing in common and holds them prisoner.

The kidnapper offers the kidnapped a cruel bargain. If they can figure out what the nine of them have in common within the next ten minutes, then they can all go free. Otherwise, he will murder one of them every ten minutes.

What transpires then is some intense soul searching by the kidnapped, where some colorful personalities and dark secret lives emerge. Each looks for things they did wrong in their life.

A decidedly older looking Melissa Joan Hart(SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH) plays a prosecutor who is one of the abducted, along with a policeman, a priest, a sexually twisted career criminal, a Chinese woman, and others who cannot understand what single factor binds the nine together. It's a really great premise. It plays out a lot like a really good episode of the TV show CRIMINAL MINDS.

This is a great crime mystery/horror flick. The storyline is very well written and absorbing.

The Bottom Line: A very good film in the horror genre. Well worth a viewing. +++(Three stars, or good).