Nine Dead

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

2010 Ontological Mystery Drama in which nine people with apparently no connection to each other are kidnapped, and told that one of them will die every 10 minutes unless they can tell him(their captor) why they are all there.

As an Ontological Mystery, much of this page is spoiler-tagged. Highlight at your own risk.


Tropes used in Nine Dead include:
  • Amoral Attorney: Kelley
  • Asshole Victim: Sully, Leon, and Coogan.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Sully. Coogan and Leon also have their moments.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Sully and Leon aren't particularly nice guys, but even they are disgusted at the Ax Crazy Coogan
    • Even Sully is disgusted when Kelley reveals that she intentionally planted evidence to frame an innocent man just to get a successful conviction.
  • Extremely Short Timespan: Aside from a few short scenes at the beginning about how the nine captives were abducted, the entire film takes place over the course of about 80 minutes.
  • Face Death with Dignity: Sully.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Sully. Coogan to a far more passive aggresive degree.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: It's Sabrina!
  • Irrational Hatred: The captor has this towards most of the captives, as he simply seems to be looking for someone, anyone to blame for the death of his son, no matter how reponsible they really were. Kelly (for framing Wade to advance herself), Coogan (for raping Wade and giving him aids), and Christian (for letting an innocent go to prison so he can remain free) are the only ones directly responsible for the death of his son. Sully and Leon are remorseless criminals, but only tangentially related to his son's death. Chan made a genuine mistake and didn't intend any harm (if you know Chinese, she even says in her death scene that Kelly manipulated her into selecting Wade from the line-up), Father Francis is bound by his oath to God not to reveal the contents of his confessions, Eddie had no choice but to follow his company's rules or be fired, and Jackson was being manipulated by Kelly and didn't even know the evidence used to convict Wade was false.
  • Jerkass: Basically everyone, but Leon, Sully and Coogan pretty much take the cake.
  • Law of Inverse Fertility: Kelly's son Billy is actually Jackson's as well, resulting from their affair. Before that Jackson had been trying to conceive a child with his wife, with no success.
  • Loan Shark: Sully
  • Papa Wolf: It turns out that the abductor's motivation is to get revenge on the ones he views as responsible for his son's death.
  • Plot Hole: The captor's plan largely depends on him knowing information that he simply did not possess or had access to. Having presumably witnessed his son's trial and the insurance company's investigation, he should at least know the identities of Kelly, Chan, Eddie, and maybe Jackson (if he was the investigating officer). He could have found out the identity and whereabouts of Coogan based on information his son would have provided him and some additional research. However, he never knew anything about Christian and Sulley's deal, Leon selling the gun to Christian, Christian confessing to Father Francis that he was the real robber, or Kelley and Jackson committing legal fraud, nor could he have known without being omniscient.
  • Politically-Incorrect Villain: Sully.
  • Ontological Mystery
  • No Ending: The film ends with Kelley overpowers and kills the Captor, then turns and murders the last two of her fellow captives to keep her own secret. Then against all logic(She's supposed to be a lawyer) wanders through the building and out the back door as the cops burst in the front door and find the bodies in the room. Then, cut to black.
  • Rape and Revenge: Kelley reveals that she was once raped and then promptly beat the rapist to death with a bat immedietly after the rape.
  • Shut UP, Hannibal: Sully gets an incredible speech, before he dies, telling his captor that he doesn't care about his vengeance and dies a happy man.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Leon.