Review: To Your Last Death

 

 

Overview:

Miraculously Miriam DeKalb survived a night full of horror. The lone survivor of a twisted game concocted by her billionaire father. Morning broke with Miriam’s brothers and sister mutilated, and the cops pinning the murders on her.

However, a mysterious entity known as the Game Master has given Miriam another chance to set things right. All she has to do is go back in time and relive the horror of the night before. 

Although the rules will be manipulated all for the Game Master’s sick entertainment.

Miriam will have to manoeuvre some deranged family therapy if she hopes to survive this time.

 

Our Take:

This film has been under development for quite some time. As far back as 2015, an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign began for an animated horror film then titled Malevolent. With William Shatner confirmed as a cast member, the movie managed to exceed its goal while raising a total of $52,713.

To Your Last Death premiered at the 2019 London FreightFest Film Festival in August 2019 and was released on video on demand earlier this year.

The film delivered on its promise of horror. Within the first moments, clips of brutal murders flash through the screen while transferring audiences into a story where the brutality had already happened. 

After things get all twisty we, along with the main character get to relive the graphic violence over and over again.

This is as gory as any movie can get, and the animation doesn’t make it any less gut-wrenching. Much of the violence uses psychological games to the same vein as the Saw film franchise. Though those murders are intermixed with some good old fights to the death and chainsaw massacres.

Nevertheless, if gore and violence is not up your alley then this most likely is not the animated film for you.

Though, there is a whole other component that makes this a unique film compared to the typical slashers. 

The supernatural time-travelling element takes the story in unexpected directions with twists at every corner. The Game Master and her seemingly omnipotent powers are never truly explained leaving much to the viewer’s imagination. 

However, it does create a story that can go in one thousand directions, take you back to the beginning and try another thousand plots just to mess with your head.

So, despite being a bulk-section sampling of all the different manners in which humans can die, To Your Last Death delivers on an intriguing storyline. There is some bigger picture stuff that could be fleshed out with another movie, but the character development and relationships make for a decent watch. Meanwhile, it is the unexpected revelations and rewinds that will keep you at the edge of your seat.

As far as the animation goes, there are mixed feelings.

Overall, there is a slick comic book style. The characters and backgrounds were given adept attention and detail. Making it easier to fall in and be shocked when the articulate blood and gore pop up. And there is just enough computer animation to make the whole thing come together without being obnoxiously apparent.

However, the skillful drawings are animated in a choppy couple of frames per second. The fluidity is lost when a character jumps around the solid background and hair sits stagnant around faces that lack expression.

It reminded me of a He-Man VHS that I had when I was a child. The grainy movie was less of an animation and more of an audio storybook with frozen shots of the hero in action. I hated that VHS no matter how many times I may have watched it. And the bad memories were coming back to me as I started the first few moments of this film.

Thankfully, the style and story bring you into the movie and the choppy animation doesn’t become too much of a distraction.

Done in live-action, or even with a higher budget, this could have easily been a significant film for horror buffs. Though with the twisted story To Your Last Death may still gain its cult following, and rightfully so. We have seen plenty of big-budget horror movies that are not half as well written and though-out as this story is. Hopefully, the talents behind this film can find the funding to continue on this story.

I need to know what the Game Master is all about.