[4] Casper Galloway, an overcautious boy, has become afraid of anything dangerous since the day his father died in an accident at the Occult Barn, his grandfather Horus's shop.

Horus goes on to explain that Casper's great grandfather Gilbert Galloway imprisoned a malevolent spirit inside the urn and it will curse the person that lets it out.

Skeptical, they invent a curse of their own: anyone with whom they make eye contact with after 10pm (since midnight is cliche) will kill themselves and come back as a "zemon", a zombie possessed by the evil demonic spirit entrapped in the urn.

Once 10 o'clock comes, Casper decides the curse is fake, makes eye-contact with his mother, and explains something happened at the Occult Barn, ending her worries.

At a football game, players and cheerleaders begin killing themselves, and Casper and his friends realize the curse they made up has come true.

He bumps into his best friend Becky, whose boyfriend had turned into a zemon earlier that night, and she says she now believes that the curse is coming true and that Casper was right.

They retrieve the items needed to seal the spirit again: the ashes from the previous urn (which Casper had stored in his backpack), a human skull (one of which, according to Dazzle, is in the anthropology classroom at their college), a heart (which they dissect from a toad), an urn (later replaced by one of Seth's mugs after Dazzle succumbs to the zemon curse and breaks it), and the watch belonging to Horus's father (which they have to get out of his grave).

He sets off a grenade, ready to die, but instead time rewinds to the moment right before the urn broke; everyone retains memory of what happened, ensuring they don't cause another curse.

WANGO Films focused heavily on 3D throughout the conception of the idea; writing the script, choosing the locations, deciding blocking, designing the shots and makeup all with the 3D in mind.

"[11] Anthony Arrigo of Dread Central rated it 2/5 stars and wrote, "Dead Before Dawn makes a commendable effort to introduce something new to the world of zombies, but those fresh concepts quickly lose their luster under the weight of a nonsensical script and hackneyed characters that will hold little value to audiences.

"[12] Gary Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times called it a "grade-Z horror comedy" that "makes the Scary Movie spoofs look positively brainy.