Death of Me
Ratings: 2/5
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Producers: Lee Nelsen, David Tish, Charles Dorfman
Writers: Arli Margolis, James Morley III, David Tish
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Horror
Release Date: 2nd October 2020
Releasing Platform: Theatre
Star Cast: Alexandra Essoe, Angel Ladao, Caledonia Burr, Chatchawai Kamonsakpitak, Kat Ingkarat, Kelly B. Jones, Luke Hemsworth, Maggie Q, Michael S. New, Oliver Paul Barry, Rome Romanne, Sahapoom Totrungsup, Tanapath Singamrath
Plot: After an insane drunken night, Neil and Christine, the vacationing couple, wakes up from a hungover completely blacked out. They had no time to gaze at what had happened as they are supposed to rush to the ferry back home. The couple had visited a South Pacific island located somewhere in Thailand.
Apparently, Neil is a travel journalist, and the two have come to the island to document its culture and history. In the extreme state of hungover both collect their belongings when their attention is caught by the news on the TV and Radio broadcasts. There are warnings taking rounds about the gruesome typhoon hitting the island, the like of which aren’t witnessed in the last 200 years. A little predictable drama is added when Neil and Christine are late for the ferry and lose their luggage.
There is a recollection of memory whereby during the last night’s outing, Neil had his camera on him. Numerous pictures taken on the camera come at the rescue of the couple. Or only if it was really a rescue that opened floodgates of horror and tremor.
The two sit down to find out the missing piece of the puzzle from the night before and that is how they bump into a video. A video that encapsulates a moment of complete awfulness and insanity. The video has some intimate scenes between the lovers and then what shocks the two is how Neil snaps Christine’s neck and buries her in a shallow grave. And from there the mystery overtakes.
Review: There is a classic movie ‘The Hangover’ where a similar first pitch is used. The characters wake up from a hangover of a drunken night and then the plot is around how they demystify what conspired in the previous night. However, the movie The Hangover is of a humour/comedy genre whereas ‘Death of Me’ belongs to the mystery/thriller genre.
The movie is from the distributor Saban Films, whose approach seems to be acquiring or greenlighting projects that have ingenious and solid premises.
Most certainly the movie begins on a high note of positive ambiguity and mayhem. It leaves the viewers with questions like why would Neil want to kill Christine? How is she sitting there watching her own death?
However, it is not long before the premise falls flat. After a few minutes, the story starts to meander from one vaguely xenophobic set piece to another. The only thing constant is the hallucinatory visions of Christine, which stops to intrigue after a point in time because there are many. One is sure of getting chills from the sight of some disfigured faces seen at a few intervals. But even that fails to create the hype due to the extent of screen time they get without any real action involved.
The lingering goodwill of the initial concept and the mystery it had created along with the richness of the setting in incapable to bring the attention back. Sonically, the film deploys the same ominous hymn every five minutes. The repetitive of the visuals and themes seem to drain the film of its strengths.
Darren Lynn Bousman just couldn’t seem to maintain the momentum. The expectations from Bousman were slightly high given the fact that he started his directorial career with the first three installments in the Saw franchise. Bousman normally displays a strong grip on the atmosphere but none of that is here.
With everything put together, Death of Me just becomes a bizarrely xenophobic chiller about evil Thai people with ulterior motives that increasingly becomes more deranged and violent. The attention span of the viewer is hindered due to the wooden acting, narrative structure, predictability, and appropriating Thailand for generic cult purposes.
