I loved the premise for the Alexandra Spieth (Stag) directed and Mike Corey written horror - I Know Exactly How You Die, and am thankful that it lived up to the zany premise of an author discovering the things he is writing about are coming true around him. Mixing elements of both comedy and horror, this veered more toward the later; though there are additives of humour sprinkled throughout the 90 minute runtime.
Rian (Rushabh Patel in his acting debut) is a horror author with a looming deadline. He has travelled to a remote motel to write his latest novel, thinking the location will give him the space to write the thing, plus he is getting over a failed relationship so thinks the distance from that will help him. His novel is a slasher, one that has a woman being stalked by an obsessed serial killer postman; that, and the fact his heroine dies at the end is all he has of the story. Meanwhile, addiction counsellor, Katie (Stephanie Hogan - Stag) has arrived at the motel. She was the victim of an obsessive mailman turned serial killer (Bobby Liga - Stag, 6:66 PM) , and so has come to the motel hoping to hide away. Upon discovering Katie; Rian comes to believe that the events he is writing about are somehow coming true. Selfishly seeing it as a great way to get over his writer's block, Rian decides to insert himself into his own story, figuring this will turn out to be his best work, while convinced that as the writer, he will be able to prevent Katie from getting killed by the stalker. His secret pleasure at being the hero is scuppered when he discovers that events happen that he hasn't written about, and he begins to fear his story is getting out of his control.
From the start it seems clear that Rian is a flawed protagonist, the intro sequence having him driving across the backroads of America as a slew of increasingly desperate messages are sent to his ex-girlfriend's phone. I liked that his story didn't really have a redemption arc, his insertion into his own story is only marginally done for the benefit of Katie, it is far more about giving him the novel he needs. As much as he may want to save her from the stalker, he makes sure she is stuck at the motel location, such as quickly writing in that her car had been tampered with, preventing her when she intends to leave to go get help. It was amusing that he was writing the film's story in real time, making excuses to pop off back to his motel room to write further parts of the story. It's when he makes himself Katie's love interest that it feels he really crosses a line of decency. Katie shared the protagonist role with Rian, her path through the film, and her interactions are much more generic, but this works in the film's favour. Rian isn't indicated to be a great author, so all the slasher type events that happen around him work by feeling very predictable. There are a cast of about just seven characters here, but the remote motel setting meant that felt perfect. Most interesting was the motel owner who has a slight inkling of the motel's strange powers but remains in team non-believer.
The whole notion of an author's works coming to life is one that has been explored in horror before. The video game Alan Wake had a similar idea of an author trying to write events to be more for his benefit, and some scenes here felt very similar to that. Going to literature, Stephen King's The Dark Half also had a writer discovering his twisted creations were becoming real. Here, there is zero explanation given, probably for the best as it was a bit of a strange idea to be able to accurately reflect well on screen. The concept of the story being written by one of the characters was neatly done, I enjoyed how it was integrated into the film, and how the flaws of the male lead, lead to a slapdash feel.
There are some horror elements here, though the antagonist doesn't get much screen time. Murders mainly occur off stage, with the leads discovering victims. There are a few throat slash sequences, and one moment of a character having their eyeballs burst! The film follows more Rian and Katie rather than the goings on of the killer but there was a sense of peril underneath the purposely cheesy horror moments. A fair bit of blood, and a somewhat thrilling finale, the cherry on top being the darkly humorous way this one ends. An extra mention for the low-fi soundtrack, the core music contrasted well with what was happening.
I liked I Know Exactly How You Die from the start, I found myself getting more and more into it, so much so that I was surprised when I noticed there was just 15 minutes of film left, it flew by. I enjoyed the 'author writing the story' trope, and was eager to see how the fun story played out, though by necessity that meant that elements of the story required being generic. I Know Exactly How You Die had its world premiere at Dances With Films NYC on January 17th.
SCORE:
No comments:
Post a Comment