--Madee, Death of Me
Director Darren Lynn Bousman has been heavily involved in the Saw franchise, and, just as Leigh Whannel eventually directed The Invisible Man, Bousman has his own separate horror film with Death of Me. Death of Me is not the masterpiece of restraint and thematically important but artistically superb filmmaking that Whannel's The Invisible Man turned out to be, yet the former still shows that Bousman is perfectly capable of directing horror films other than something like Saw III or his upcoming Saw sequel Spiral. With Death of Me, Bousman addresses the potential of Eastern metaphysical ideas for horror while letting an actress and actor not particularly associated with the genre take the lead roles.
Production Values
A lack of both cryptozoological and supernatural creatures and the limited location keep Death of Me centered on drama, the plight of its main characters, and a handful of relevant epistemological themes. A handful of scenes show people with their eyes and mouths sewn shut, which is largely as close as the film gets to showing any sort of antagonists other than mysterious natives of Thailand. Maggie Q and Chris Hemsworth have great chemistry as an affectionate couple slammed with one problem after another as they try to end their vacation until they find a video of one killing the other. The nature of the story is more about them reacting to troubling circumstances than them changing as characters, but that does not cast any sort of negative light on the performances.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
An American couple--Neil and Christine--visiting Thailand wakes up needing to quickly take a ferry off the island to escape a typhoon, but a series of grave inconveniences leave them without their passports, their luggage getting ferried away as they are forced to stay. They return to their room, at which point Neil views some pictures and part of a two and a half hour video he took (he came to the island as a photographer). Watching the massive video, they see the waitress put something into their drinks shortly before they head back to their room. However, the video shows a waitress drug Christine and Neil, who then walk back to their sleeping quarters before Neil chokes Christine seemingly to death, digs a grave, and buries her. She begins having bizarre experiences that disorient her and make her question the veracity of her sensory perceptions.
Intellectual Content
The puzzling video of Neil and Christine in which one kills the other marks the beginning of the grave epistemological inquiries Death of Me stands on, with one character acting like the video is a staged production by default and others treating it with suspicion. The word "impossible," as is often the case in entertainment as a whole, is thrown out by people who mistake something that conflicts with their sensory perceptions and memories for something that cannot be true. Anyone can recognize that, with the sole exception of physical sensations [1], sensory perceptions do not prove anything about the actual external world, and they do not need to wait until some disturbing sensory experience or someone else talks about philosophy with them to realize that seeing something does not prove it exists in any form outside of one's mind.
Conclusion
2020 was a year of drought for cinema, with horror unsurprisingly still having some excellent releases even as enormous movies were pushed back into 2021 or beyond. Death of Me is just one of several clever horror films that debuted last year. Yes, it shares some loose similarities to previous horror movies (which I will not name for the sake of not accidentally spoiling some of the plot), but it also has its own novel elements that reinforce both the story and the philosophical themes, even if the latter will be misunderstood or ignored by many viewers. Maggie Q, Luke Hemsworth, and Buddhist references help it stand on its own even if viewers of older horror movies might recognize some familiar plot points.
Content:
1. Violence: A character chokes another person to the point of unconsciousness and seeming death early on. The same character is shown cutting himself with a knife and pulling out his own organs later, but it is unclear if the act was hallucinated or if he actually did it. Closer to the end, a woman shoots someone in the head at close range, which throws blood on a window.
2. Profanity: Mild profanity includes a usage of "hell" in a non-theological context, but variants of "fuck" and "shit" are heard.
3. Sexuality: The two lead characters engage in a largely clothed sexual act of penetration in the video they watch.
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