Breaking Dawn starts in a Californian college as Professor Simon (associate producer Joe Morton) tells his students that they have to perform an intensive six week study of a mental patient in Cape State Hospital as a crucial part of their education, fail & they will never become qualified Doctors. A bright, young, attractive & intelligent student named Eve (Kelly Overton) is given a particularly difficult patient to study. His name is Don Wake (James Haven) & is a convicted killer, he was found covered in blood besides the dead body of a woman (Diane Verona) & her young daughter (Jenette McCurdy). At first Don won't even look at Eve much less talk to her, but like the trooper she is Eve persists in trying to figure him out. Eventually Don begins to talk but what he says frightens Eve, he says that someone is watching her & mentions the name Malachay. Eve then begins to see a dark shadowy figure at her every turn, as Don churns out the conspiracy theories & bizarre statements Eve slowly begins to lose her mind as the line between fantasy & reality becomes more & more blurred. Is there something more to the supposed nonsense that Don talks other than being the insane ravings of a psychiatric patient...?

Written & directed by Mark Edwin Robinson I have nothing but negative feelings towards Breaking Dawn. Now, we all like a good twist ending, the sort of ending which catches us unawares, surprises us, works well with the rest of the film & stays in our memory like the cool twist endings to The Sixth Sense (1999) & Fight Club (1999) to name just two good examples & to a lesser extent the endings to films such as Scream (1996) where the identity of the killer comes a nice surprise & isn't that obvious. Then, of course, there are films whose endings spoil everything that has gone before & as an example lets take, oh I don't know lets say Breaking Dawn because I have never seen such an awful ending to a film, never. Breaking Dawn starts out as a decent psychological horror thriller with spooky things starting to happen to Eve, it's not the most action packed film ever by any stretch of the imagination but it holds ones interest, it's not the most absorbing film ever either but it is more than watchable & it's not that bad a film until the twist ending, I have to keep mentioning it because everything else up to that point (which was OK to be fair to it) suddenly becomes irrelevant. I am sure there are people out there who think they have this muddled mess of an ending figured out down to the last detail, all I can say is that no one will be able to explain this thing in a satisfactory way to me & as far as I'm concerned it doesn't make a bit of sense & never will. Breaking Dawn is crap & it's a waste of time watching it to be rewarded with the lamest ending in film history, it's as simple & straight forward as that.

Director Robinson doesn't half make a mess of what could have been a decent thriller, maybe he thought what he had shot would play out OK or maybe it was ruined in the editing room but I'd imagine it was more likely down to a rubbish script as he tries to tie all the absurdities together within the space of a few muddled minutes & give us all a happier than happy final shot. He builds the tension quite well during the first 80 odd minutes but it's all for nought at the end of the day.

Technically Breaking Dawn is fine & it is generally well made throughout. The acting is pretty good, Overton is nice & easy on the eyes & puts in a decent performance. Was it just me or did the guy who played Don look like John Morghen star of such Italian sleaze classics as Cannibal Apocalypse (1980), City of the Living Dead (1980), The House on the Edge of the Park (1980), Cannibal Ferox (1981), Stagefright (1987) & The Church (1989)? OK, maybe it was just me...

Breaking Dawn is rubbish, I hated it all because of the final few minutes. Don't get me wrong it wasn't exactly getting me excited up to that point but it was OK. Definitely one to avoid as far as I'm concerned although it seems to have it's fair share of positive comments on the IMDb...

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negative