A vacationing couple must discover the mystery behind a strange video that shows one of them killing the other.
I always try to find the silver lining when reviewing a bad film. For instance, “Death of Me” is one of the biggest clunkers of the year but at least it was filmed on location in Thailand.
Christine (Maggie Q) wakes up disheveled and alarmed in a modern bungalow. She notices her husband Neil (Luke Hemsworth) passed out on the floor and shakes him awake. It seems they were drugged the night before and can’t recall anything. They hail a taxi outside and Christine realizes she’s misplaced her phone. In the taxi, the driver is rude and hurries them out as they approach a ferry. A porter carries their luggage onto the ferry but the boat disembarks without them marooning them on the picturesque island. Could they be in purgatory? Subtlety is lacking in nearly every sentence and frame.
Back at the bungalow, the couple begins to review footage from Neil’s camera hoping to piece things together. After scrolling through some happy vacation photos they notice a video recording that’s over two hours long. The use of found footage is no doubt a horror trope but it can be effective in the right hands. Unfortunately, there’s a lack of tension and intrigue due to the camera clumsily intercutting between the recording and their underwhelming reactions watching it. In the video, they’re at a beachside rustic bar getting drunk and having a good time. Christine is approached by their server who, with equal doses of seductive and threatening dialogue, offers her a special drink and a necklace bejeweled with an unknown predator’s tooth. After ingesting the drink Christine becomes heavily intoxicated.
Neil’s camera, continuing to capture the night, shows the couple in the front yard of their rental and they begin to kiss. Their passion turns violent and the two are horrified to watch as Neil proceeds to choke her onscreen. He breaks her neck causing an overwhelmed Christine to dart out of the room taking refuge in the bathroom where she gets ill. After some affirmation through the locked door from her alleged murdering husband, she lets him in. They decide it’s best to head into the village and seek medical advice. Their doctor notes she must have drunk a powerful hallucinogen and her visions of death are nothing more than a far out effect.
Maggie Q does a decent job as someone dealing with unknown forces, but Hemsworth’s lack of charisma bogs her down. I jokingly refer to him as the runt of the Hemsworth litter since one brother played Thor and the other was married to Miley Cyrus. Sure he was in HBO’s “Westworld” but he was the least interesting character in the show. It’s imperative for lead actors to contain some form of chemistry but these two lack any.
I was looking up director Darren Lynn Bousman’s filmography and it’s quite an uninspiring resume. His most known films are the inferior and unnecessary “Saw” sequels. While I loved the original “Saw,” no one needed several outings of torture porn that dominated the early 2000s. I’ve considered that some filmmakers were trying to process the heartbreaking Guantanamo Bay photos and testimonies that were reported at the time although the subtext was lost in the onscreen barbarism.
“Death of Me” has some great drone footage of the Thai landscape but the cinematography during the majority of the time is way too sleek. These days the use of 4K is common but with the wrong lighting and production design, there’s no sense of mystique or depth displayed. Every actor looks too polished and the action looks like a stage play or some daytime soap opera episode.
Normally, psychedelics and crappy partners are a winning formula for a horror film with “Midsommar” being the best recent example. In that film, director Ari Aster blends family trauma, mind-altering drugs, and the never-ending appeal of cults into a unique masterpiece. Shockingly, “Death of Me” was written by three men and I can’t believe this is the best they could conjure. Perhaps such a focus on filming in the southeast Asian islands was prioritized more than writing a solid script. The title is spot on because after watching it, I felt like a part of me died on the inside.
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