After the year we’ve had with 2020, I feel like I desperately need a vacation. I want a chance just to get away from the business of city life, bills, and adulting. Just a few days where I can, maybe, sit on the beach with my wife. Soak up the sun, feel the cool breeze flowing over my sides, and the chill of the water upon my feet. Maybe, one day soon. For now, I’m stuck living vicariously through movies with a beach, tropical, or vacation backdrop. Perhaps, I should stay away from the beaches where Maggie Q is having her vacation. The actress doesn’t seem to have the best of luck with the tropical settings in 2020.
As if 2020 wasn’t bad enough for the majority of us with COVID-19 scares, the impending rumors of WWIII, and being out of work, among other things, why not add creepy tropical islands to that list? Seems like a very “2020” thing to expect nowadays. For some odd reason, actress Maggie Q is at the center of it all. Towards the beginning of this year, she was one of the island workers in Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island, a beautiful paradise that gave you the fantasy of your desires. However, there was always a cost for that fantasy. The deadly secret under the beauty of the island. Maggie Q played a worker who basically brought each guest to their fantasy, or doom, depending on how you look at it.
Now that we are facing the end of the year (thank God), Maggie Q is back to the tropics once again for another terrifying horror movie in Death of Me. The story chronicles a couple (Maggie Q, Luke Hemsworth) as they attempt to uncover the mysterious circumstances surrounding Q’s death and mystical resurrection, though the answers they find may not be the ones they desire. The narrative with which audiences are presented is rather enticing; even if it does bleed into typical horror cliches. I feel like the last few years we’ve been on the trajectory of horror movies where we are seeing a boom of independent writers, creators and directors take the genre into new and exciting places. Whether it has been a comment on racism with Jordan Peele’s Get Out, the use of grief in Hereditary, or even giving us a film shot almost entirely in bright sunlight with Midsommar, horror is growing and evolving. It’s an exciting time to be a fan of the genre.
I think the writers and directors made the attempt to do that here. The movie attempts to create a compelling mystery. Once that mystery is revealed, about the film’s halfway point, it becomes predictable, then, somehow, finds itself transformed into the aforementioned Midsommar. I found myself really liking the front half of the film. Director Darren Lynn Bousman uses tribal imagery to help carve out the film’s unique voice. I liked how Bousman creates the atmosphere of the movie. It’s creepy and setting it against the tropical background makes it downright disturbing. The mystery that surrounds this movie continuously had me on the edge of my seat. That was, at least, until I figured out the mystery before the film’s reveal - then it just dilutes itself into typical horror fashion we’ve seen a hundred times before. The interesting aspects of this film find themselves in the same mundane rut most horror sequels find themselves in.
At the center of all of this is Maggie Q & Hemsworth. Unlike his brothers, however, this Hemsworth is a bit too much to handle. He has no chemistry with his leading lady and he painfully attempts to establish some several times throughout the film. It is a truly hard thing to sit through. When he’s not making an attempt to force a believable martial connection, he is continuously overacting. Hemsworth may be one of the worst parts about the film. Luckily, his leading lady in Maggie Q more than makes up for her partner’s lackluster delivery. Maggie Q ushers in a performance that aids the film to be compelling. Her performance is worth the admission of this movie.
Overall, Death of Me is home to compelling ideas, an intriguing mystery, and a terrific performance from its star, Maggie Q. Unfortunately, the magic of the tropics fades fairly quickly from this one. To call co-star Luke Hemsworth bland would be an incredible understatement. The acting gene doesn’t appear in this Hemsworth at all. He is either overacting or trying to establish a believable marriage - leaving audiences to cringe in the process. The mystery of the movie is easier to figure out than I would imagine filmmakers hoped for. Though, I will say, most people won’t believe how it ends. It’s the one surprising element I can give the filmmakers. Death of Me is a mixed bag with traditional tropes and an excellent leading lady.
RORSCHACH RATING:
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Victims and Villains is written Josh "Captain Nostalgia" Burkey (and produced by), Caless Davis, Dan Rockwood, & Brandon Miller. Music by Mallory Johnson and others. Death of Me is property of Saban Films. We do not own nor claim any rights. This review was edited by Cam Smith. Death of Me opens in select theaters, drive-ins and digital on October 2nd, 2020!
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