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The Dead Center

188 statements
36 feature instances
27 referencing feature instances

The Dead Center	type	TVTItem
The Dead Center	label	The Dead Center
The Dead Center	page	TheDeadCenter
The Dead Center	comment	The Dead Center is a horror movie written and directed by Billy Senese. Daniel Forrester (Shane Carruth, of Primer and Upstream Color) is a troubled psychiatrist who handles the case of an unusual patient brought into the emergency psych ward. Initially in a catatonic state, this John Doe can't remember his name, family, or how he even got to the hospital. As Dr. Forrester uses his medical expertise to unravel the mystery, he realizes there's something far more dangerous and evil involved.The film had simultaneous limited theater and streaming releases on October 11, 2019. The trailer can be found here.
The Dead Center	fetched	2023-09-09T01:29:42Z
The Dead Center	parsed	2023-09-09T01:29:42Z
The Dead Center	isPartOf	DBTropes
The Dead Center / int_13bde1fb	type	Neurodiversity Is Supernatural
The Dead Center / int_13bde1fb	comment	Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: Turns out dissociative amnesia is a symptom of Demonic Possession.
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The Dead Center / int_141a6acb	type	Madness Mantra
The Dead Center / int_141a6acb	comment	Madness Mantra: One of the other psych ward patients repeats a list of complaints while his doctor gets him to take his meds.
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The Dead Center / int_1448bff3	type	Mental Health Recovery Arc
The Dead Center / int_1448bff3	comment	Mental Health Recovery Arc: At first, Dr. Forrester thinks he has just another - if unusual - patient. Aside from the supernatural/horror aspects, the movie portrays this trope with surprising, sobering realism. John Doe is sent to the emergency psych ward because the hospital doctors don't know what to do with him. And even then, he's no shape to fill out the consent forms. Dr. Forrester secretly - and illegally - admits him into the ward, because he knows John Doe would probably get left to rot in the streets otherwise. And even then, John Doe can't legally be put under involuntary hold for more than 72 hours, and Dr. Forrester resorts to hypnosis to quickly figure out what's wrong with him. There often aren't enough medical staff on hand, so sometimes patients go unsupervised, with tragic results. While John Doe eventually remembers things, it's really the demon imitating or giving him enough clarity to be released. The scene of his panicking father coming to pick him up after thinking John had died is exactly how these situations can play out.
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The Dead Center / int_2fa14a9b	type	Freudian Couch
The Dead Center / int_2fa14a9b	comment	Freudian Couch: Dr. Forrester is introduced waking up on the couch in his office. It's an early indicator that he's overworked and may have his own mental health issues.
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The Dead Center / int_2fb3170e	type	Enemy Within
The Dead Center / int_2fb3170e	comment	Enemy Within: John Doe spends most of the movie dealing with this. The demon wins.
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The Dead Center / int_315a122	type	Hospital Hottie
The Dead Center / int_315a122	comment	Hospital Hottie: With the exception of Dr. Gray as played by the gorgeous Poorna Jagannathan, everyone else wouldn't look out of place in a real psych ward.
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The Dead Center / int_33029735	type	Dies Wide Open
The Dead Center / int_33029735	comment	Dies Wide Open: A deleted scene reveals this is how John Doe died the second time.
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The Dead Center / int_3ed23024	type	Surprisingly Realistic Outcome
The Dead Center / int_3ed23024	comment	Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite being a horror movie, much of it is firmly grounded in reality. John Doe is sent to the psych ward because he randomly showed up at the hospital, and the doctors couldn't figure out what's wrong with him. Dr. Forrester admits John Doe into the ward because he knows that such a patient would likely get dumped in a corner somewhere and be forgotten instead of treated. He does this without doing any consent paperwork or even running it by Dr. Gray - his boss - who had just told him that all his cases had to be approved by her. This is illegal, and ends up coming back to haunt him. Working in an emergency psych ward is stressful; not only are some patients dangerous to themselves and others, but the place is sometimes understaffed, leaving gaps in care and security. Dr. Forrester is great at his job, but his flouting of the rules and emotional issues aren't seen as quirky or endearing, but put a strain on his relationships with his coworkers. Dr. Gray is furious she finds out what's been going on. It's not just about the personal betrayal, but the professional fallout. She's completely right to think that Dr. Forrester basically kidnapped, drugged, and assaulted a helpless patient. Had the whole Demonic Possession situation not happened, John Doe's family could've easily sued the hospital.
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The Dead Center / int_42215dce	type	Ambiguous Ending
The Dead Center / int_42215dce	comment	Ambiguous Ending: There are a few different ways the ending could play out. Does Dr. Forrester succeed in stopping the demon by killing Michael? Or did Michael even die? And if he did, what's stopping the demon from reviving him a third time? Is the demon just laying low and waiting for Dr. Forrester to leave, so it can be discovered by the cops? Or can the demon Body Surf and transferred itself into Dr. Forrester, thus giving it a newer, healthier host? The lines growing on his face certainly imply something is happening to him. The movie ends without resolving any of these.
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The Dead Center / int_48ca7c29	type	Broken Ace
The Dead Center / int_48ca7c29	comment	Broken Ace: Dr. Forrester is excellent at what he does, and he has a kind heart. But he has trouble expressing emotions, is a loner, and will resort to illegal methods to get patients the care he thinks they need.
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The Dead Center / int_5313c266	type	Bookends
The Dead Center / int_5313c266	comment	Book Ends: The movie begins and ends with an ambulance.
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The Dead Center / int_55af5b73	type	All Therapists Are Muggles
The Dead Center / int_55af5b73	comment	All Therapists Are Muggles: This is a given, considering the realistic setting of the movie. Early on Dr. Forrester thinks it's some kind of catatonia or dissociative amnesia. But once he gets John Doe into a trance, interviews him, and a couple of people die, he puts the pieces together fairly quickly.
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The Dead Center / int_59907e4f	type	Police Are Useless
The Dead Center / int_59907e4f	comment	Police Are Useless: The results are mixed. As a medical examiner, Dr. Graham does a great job at tracking down information on his missing John Doe, though he only finds his exact location due to the demon taking over and giving the hospital staff Michael's information, and even then he got there too late to stop Michael's dad from taking him home. He gets killed pretty quickly in the final confrontation as well. Also, the psych ward security is very effective at subduing Dr. Forrester, but do a pretty mediocre job at guarding and securing him. Also, the local police arrive just in time to unintentionally distract the demon, and competently handle the neighborhood cleanup.
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The Dead Center / int_62434fe2	type	Sanity Slippage
The Dead Center / int_62434fe2	comment	Sanity Slippage: Dr. Forrester's sanity clearly took a hit when the demon briefly attacks him for the first time. He's still well enough to function and beat Michael Clark to death, but how much he has left by the end of the movie is debatable.
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The Dead Center / int_6269a4b3	type	Psycho Psychologist
The Dead Center / int_6269a4b3	comment	Psycho Psychologist: What the rest of the staff thinks is happening to Dr. Forrester, but he's trying to kill John Doe before the demon can kill again.
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The Dead Center / int_6500e9cc	type	Fighting from the Inside
The Dead Center / int_6500e9cc	comment	Fighting from the Inside: John Doe is catatonic for most his time in the psych ward, because the demon is slowly taking over his body. In the brief moments he's lucid, he's fully aware of what's happening and tells Dr. Forrester to kill him before it's too late.
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The Dead Center / int_6941e30b	type	Room Full of Crazy
The Dead Center / int_6941e30b	comment	Room Full of Crazy: Once Dr. Graham tracks down John Doe's parents, he's shown what John was working on the week before he ended up in the hospital: a big board with newspaper clippings and copies of photographs of genocides and mass death events from all over the world, and entries from the Covenant of Death, translated from Vedic Sanskrit. John also made another spiral pattern on the floor nearby.
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The Dead Center / int_6d089995	type	The Shrink
The Dead Center / int_6d089995	comment	The Shrink: Personal issues and illegal methods aside, Dr. Forrester is shown to be quite good at what he does.
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The Dead Center / int_77315f4f	type	You Have to Believe Me!
The Dead Center / int_77315f4f	comment	You Have to Believe Me!: Dr. Forrester briefly tries to explain what's going on to Dr. Gray. But she won't listen because she's livid at him for not only secretly admitting a patient, but seemingly assaulting him as well.
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The Dead Center / int_7897f4af	type	Hospital Gurney Scene
The Dead Center / int_7897f4af	comment	Hospital Gurney Scene: Played for stark realism. There is no dramatic, crowded rush to get John Doe treated. He's wheeled out to his room by one nurse down a quiet hallway, who asks for help from the attending nurse to help him safely transfer John's body from the gurney to the bed. The attending nurse even mutters how much John weighs. If you've ever worked in, stayed in, or visited someone in a hospital, you know how common this setting is. However, this is played entirely straight in one of the deleted scenes.
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The Dead Center / int_89b8bdc0	type	Kind Restraints
The Dead Center / int_89b8bdc0	comment	Kind Restraints: Shown realistically at a couple of points, as some of the patients are dangerous to themselves and others.
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The Dead Center / int_8a4988bb	type	Mind Rape
The Dead Center / int_8a4988bb	comment	Mind Rape: Just a brief exposure to the demon's soul sucking power is enough to give Dr. Forrester disturbing visions of previous victims and leave him a nervous wreck.
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The Dead Center / int_9013aef6	type	Mask of Sanity
The Dead Center / int_9013aef6	comment	Mask of Sanity: John Doe suddenly gets his memory and awareness back and demands to see his kids. His real name was Michael Clark, but his body was taken over by the demon pretending to be Michael, to get him out of the psych ward quickly.
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The Dead Center / int_906365a2	type	Demonic Possession
The Dead Center / int_906365a2	comment	Dr. Gray is furious she finds out what's been going on. It's not just about the personal betrayal, but the professional fallout. She's completely right to think that Dr. Forrester basically kidnapped, drugged, and assaulted a helpless patient. Had the whole Demonic Possession situation not happened, John Doe's family could've easily sued the hospital.
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The Dead Center / int_96fbeaf	type	There Are No Therapists
The Dead Center / int_96fbeaf	comment	There Are No Therapists: Utterly averted, as the main character is a psychiatrist, and the majority of the film takes place in an emergency psych ward.
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The Dead Center / int_b0356af5	type	Moment of Lucidity
The Dead Center / int_b0356af5	comment	Moment of Lucidity: John Doe has only a few of these, just long enough to give a very muddled overview of what happened to him, and to flat out tell Dr. Forrester to kill him. He finally remembers his real name and demands to see his kids, but it's really due to the demon completely taking him over and pretending to be normal in order to get discharged faster.
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The Dead Center / int_b66a24a7	type	Trauma-Induced Amnesia
The Dead Center / int_b66a24a7	comment	Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Demonic Possession and being brought back from the dead twice is definitely traumatic. Dr. Forrester has to resort to hypnosis and strong medication to get anything out of his patient. John Doe is surprisingly lucid in these moments, but can't explain what's going on well enough.
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The Dead Center / int_b983a56b	type	Came Back Wrong
The Dead Center / int_b983a56b	comment	Came Back Wrong: John Doe is introduced as a suicide victim whose corpse somehow came back to life. He's left a weak, wheezing, catatonic wreck. It's eventually revealed that his name is Michael Clark, and he and his wife were supposed to die in a house fire. But a demon went into him and brought him back to life. Once he figured out what happened, he tried killing himself via draining all of the blood from his body to stop the demon, but it revived him again.
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The Dead Center / int_b98a8902	type	Soul Eating
The Dead Center / int_b98a8902	comment	Soul Eating: The demon takes its victims' lives through their mouths, and gains strength with each one.
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The Dead Center / int_c819533b	type	Rage Breaking Point
The Dead Center / int_c819533b	comment	Rage-Breaking Point: Dr. Forrester is a psychiatrist who demonstrates multiple times how he's cool and professional with dealing with clients. That's what makes it especially shocking when he loses it after figuring out John Doe killed one of his coworkers and his other patient, then confronts and attacks him.
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The Dead Center / int_cc7fae30	type	Outside-Context Problem
The Dead Center / int_cc7fae30	comment	Outside-Context Problem: The psychiatrist ward is full of professionals and well-prepared for mentally ill people. They are not prepared for actual demons.
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The Dead Center / int_d23a9bb8	type	Possession Burnout
The Dead Center / int_d23a9bb8	comment	Possession Burnout: John Doe's body is a physical wreck due to this, and it's possible the demon transferred to Dr. Forrester because John's body was too badly damaged in their final encounter.
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The Dead Center / int_e11e88b6	type	Thousand-Yard Stare
The Dead Center / int_e11e88b6	comment	Thousand-Yard Stare: How the hospital nurse first finds John Doe, laying on his side in a bed with his eyes wide open.
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The Dead Center / int_e5700c89	type	Reluctant Psycho
The Dead Center / int_e5700c89	comment	Reluctant Psycho: What Dr. Forrester thinks is going on with John Doe. John Doe is being driven insane and being taken over via Demonic Possession.
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The Dead Center / int_fff371b4	type	Death Seeker
The Dead Center / int_fff371b4	comment	Death Seeker: John Doe tells Dr. Forrester directly, in no uncertain terms, to kill him. He's still lucid enough to know that the demon has to be stopped there and then within the confines of the psych ward, before it can get out and devour more people. It's also revealed during Dr. Graham's investigation that John Doe was suicidal before that; he drained his entire body of blood, but came back to life anyway.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Dead Center	hasFeature	All Therapists Are Muggles / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Ambiguous Ending / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Broken Ace / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Came Back Wrong / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Demon Works / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Demonic Possession / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Enemy Within / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Fighting from the Inside / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Films of 2015â€“2019 / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Freudian Couch / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Hospital Gurney Scene / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Hospital Hottie / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Kind Restraints / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Mask of Sanity / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Mental Health Recovery Arc / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Moment of Lucidity / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Neurodiversity Is Supernatural / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Possession Burnout / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Psycho Psychologist / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Rage Breaking Point / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Reluctant Psycho / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Room Full of Crazy / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Soul Eating / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	The Shrink / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Thousand-Yard Stare / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	Trauma-Induced Amnesia / int_486477f0
The Dead Center	hasFeature	You Have to Believe Me! / int_486477f0

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