‘Death of Me’ Movie Review: Vacation Horror Movies
For someone who already has anxiety about traveling, Death of Me is a horror movie before it even gets to the scary stuff. For less nervous travelers, Death Of Me is still a terrifying look at the dark side of paradise. The basic fears about being away from home and the vulnerability of unfamiliar situations give way to something truly sinister. Death of Me is in select theaters and digital VOD now.
‘Death of Me’ is ‘The Hangover’ if Doug died
Christine (Maggie Q) and Neil (Luke Hemsworth) wake up in their Thailand island suite with no memory of the night before. They lost their phones and passports and their luggage left on the ferry they can’t board without their ID. So far, this is already enough premise for a movie. Lost foreigners without their identification or communication tools is tense.
They can access their cloud photos with the hotel internet so they use them to retrace their steps. They see a video in which Neil kills Christine. So that’s disturbing, but Christine is obviously still alive so it’s also confusing.
This island will be the ‘Death Of Me’
Christine and Neil visit the places from their photos and video to try to get answers. This leads to some mythology about the supernatural forces on the island, and the feeling of a conspiracy amongst the locals. It’s the combination of being in a foreign country and something inexplicable happening, it could be real and even if it is, they don’t believe you. Christine is in trouble either way.
Q and Hemsworth play this like practical people trying to find solutions. They’re not the ugly American tourists who deserve what they get for desecrating foreign lands. Nor are they ignorant teenagers, either. They’re adults who could resolve intense situations, but what they discover goes beyond the human world.
It’s a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to die there
The deeper Christine and Neil get into the local legends, the more frightening things manifest for them. Scary stuff keeps coming out of Christine’s mouth, and there’s stuff with her eyes too. These are pretty universal fears upon which the deadly legend plays. It’s a bit of body horror, that Christine can’t trust her own body under the influence of this foreign culture.
Screenwriters Ari Margolis, James Morley III and David Tish create a believable legend that seems like it could come from the ancient cultures of the region. Director Darren Lynn Bousman finds the beauty and nightmare in Thai locations. As Halloween month begins, Death of Me is a solid new horror movie to watch for the season.
