Second Sight Delivers the EVIL Goods Yet Again! “You’re Next” reviewed! (Second Sight Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on August 28, 2024

Limited Edition and Standard Edition Sets of “You’re Next” Available At Amazon!

Celebrating 35 years of marriage, Paul and Aubrey Davison invite their four children – Drake, Crispian, Aimee, and Felix – to their rural weekend manor along with their respective spouses for the occasion. Tensions amongst strained family ties begin to boil over as siblings quarrel before they even share the first meal all together. Yet, that’s the least of the family’s problems when animal masked intruders shoot crossbow arrows through the windows and are found hiding, waiting under the bed with machetes. The surprising attack sends a surge of shock through them but not Crispian’s girlfriend Erin who intends on fighting back and defending herself with survival knowhow. As the night carries on, the family is being brutally executed one-by-one in what is seemingly random acts of violence. Unsure how many assailants are outside and the cell service not working, Erin and the rest of survivors attempt to survive the night until help arrives.

Before being the directorial face behind the recent string of mega blockbusters, literally, in the “Godzilla vs. Kong” films, Adam Wingard had more humbling beginnings as an original horror storyteller. From working with “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Part II’s” Bill Moseley as a demented door-to-door salesman in “Home Sick,” to interlacing themes of drug addiction and haunting visions in “Pop Skull,” to thrill with an abusive pursuit of an escaped convict tracking down his ex-girlfriend in “A Horrible Way to Die,” Adam Wingard had a knack for extracting small time horror in a big way. Although all three of those examples saw success at some level, the glass ceiling never really broke until a juncture point just after the turn of the decade in 2010 with “You’re Next.” Screenwriter Simon Barret, who also before writing “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” wrote the U.S. home invasion and slasheresque horror-comedy as the fourth film under Wingard’s direction, following “A Horrible Way to Die,” “Autoerotic,” and “What Fun We Are Having;” however, Barrett has found moderate success of his own with “Frankenfish” and, one of my personal favorites, “Dead Birds,” with an early performance from Michael Shannon. Barrett, alongside Jess Wu and Keith Calder of Snoot Entertainment, Chris Harding, Kim Sherman, and Brock Williams produce the Snoot Entertainment in association with HanWay Films production.

“You’re Next” reunites a cast of Wingard regulars, interchanged with good friend and fellow horror filmmaker Ti West (“The House of the Devil”) that has all but nearly faded the higher the filmmaker climbs the Hollywood latter. The entourage includes “Hatchet II” and “The House of the Devil’s” A.J. Bowen as the pacifist academic Crispian, “Alien: Covenant” and “Pet Semetary’s” Amy Seimetz as Crispian’s starving filmic sister Aimie, “The Sacrament” and Autoerotic’s” Joe Swanberg as the pompous older brother Drake, and “Pop Skull,” and “V/H/S’s” Lane Hughes as the Fox masked killer all of whom were in Wingard’s “A Horrible Way to Die” a year earlier. Plus “Home Sick” and “Pop Skull’s” L.C. Holt dons a killer’s mask and director and friend Ti West of the highly popular X film series also has a brief role that plays into their whole dark nature of storytelling. The inner circle of friends and usual casting smooths out to fills voids by adding a couple of marketable and genre renowned names to add a solidifying agent to “You’re Next’s” magnetism with “Habit” and “The Last Winter” actor-director Larry Fessenden as well as un-retiring one of the genre’s more respected and timeless scream queens and final girls in Barbara Crampton (“Re-Animator,” “Frome Beyond”) to be playing matriarch and host of the family being invaded upon. Though marking her return back to horror, Crampton relinquishes her reins on the final girl trope, swallows her stardom by moving aside, and letting have that particular subcategory role to Australian actress Sharni Vinson (“Bait”) in one of her first handful of roles in a feature film. Vinson will send shockwaves through audiences on her quick turn of character from a lovely, liberal oblique woman to a complete cutthroat badass that not only turns the tables on the attackers but also shepherds in a new fear or thrill – a worriment encompasses over the sociopathic bad guys. “You’re Next” puts up a high body count with the rest of the cast body including the late Nicholas Tucci (“Choose”), Wendy Glenn (“11-11-11”), Margaret Laney (“Absence”), Rob Moran (“There’s Something About Mary”), and Kate Lyn Sheil (“She Dies Tomorrow”).

Before the film’s release in 2011, the home invasion genre saw an explosion of examples from class that wasn’t exceeding in quantity but rather rocketing skyward in quality. The French had a good handle on concept with a bleak, ultra-violent coating that completely engrossed viewers as well as rocked their core with how nihilistic and cynical characters could become without a heroic, saves-the-day, or survival outcome, such as is the cast with 2007’s “Inside” and 2008’s “Martyrs.” The American industry also attempts to capitalize on the niche market with “Funny Games” released in 2007 but that too is based off a European script from Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke’s original film a decade earlier of the same title. In all fairness, Haneke also helmed the remake starring Tim Roth and Naomi Watts. Yet, American audiences adored their own success with Bryan Bertino’s “The Strangers” in 2008 and a remake of Wes Craven’s “The Last House on the Left” by director Dennis Iliadis in 2009 that conveyed that sort of callous violence and anarchial analogies. Then in steps Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s entry of “You’re Next” of shared sadism and pessimism but sprinkles it gallows humor through the dialogue exchanges and impressions of character attitudes to make a hybrid that pulls inspiration from the likes of “Funny Games,” “The Strangers,” and “The Last House on the Left” and still finding individuality amongst the like without suffering from an identity crisis. Protagonists and antagonists swerve through an interchangeable junction, flipping the script just when you think you’ve plotted the course of the storyline, and yet, a found sense of cold cock shock lands squarely when all is said and done and bits and pieces of the royale rumble characters are strewn about the battled ground mansion.

“You’re Next” arrives at the UK label and friend to physical media Second Sight Films. Second Sight’s single disc Blu-ray comes AVC encoded with 1080p hi-def resolution and dual layered with a BD50, projecting a consistent 24FPS. There’s not much to terribly note about Second Sight’s quality release of Adam Wingard’s over 20-year-old, 4K shot film as digital stock hasn’t necessarily changed significantly for the better over the last two decades. Presented in a widescreen 2.39: aspect ratio, Wingard and cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo (“The Green Knight”) choose a warmer color pallet of mustard yellows and burgundies, accentuated by enveloping three-point lighting and the tweed dinner jackets and turtlenecks, to give it a retro 70s or 80s veneer in a modern time. No banding issues or digital compression anomalies with the ample disc space. Range is fine but limited to mostly the aforementioned color scheme. Depth is almost limited in what is mostly a series of medium to closeup shots in an interior setting, but we’re treated to a mixed melee of close-up violence that sees splatter scatter the dark syrupy blood. A DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix layers a lossless fidelity consistency. Dialogue has no issues with obstructions, favoring a clean and clear presentation of exchanges without losing inflection, tone, and vitality during the chaos, calmer moments, and tensioned exchanges. A fugitive depth doesn’t sustain any kind of depth; again, with the close quarters action, we tend to forget Larry Fessenden’s blaring music left on repeat and noted to have at least three layers of depth from within the stereo’s room, between rooms, and outside the house. Organic and inorganic ambience and action have seamlessly admixed without a sense of artificial notice. A compilation of artist soundtrack isn’t invasive or intrusive with the assailants and that kind of dampens the effect but it’s an overall workable mix from Mads Heldtberg, Jasper Justice Lee, Kyle McKinnon, and Wingard himself. Optional English subtitles are available. Second Sight Films reliability to earn the right to re-release another modern production stands through again another special features laden release that includes a brand-new audio commentary with director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett as well as archive audio commentary with Wingard, Barrett, and actresses Sharni Vinson and Barbara Crampton. Another new feature is an approx. hour long interview Children of the 80s with Wingard and Barrett recollecting and going through the details for the genesis of the story and film. Other new interviews include producers Keith and Jess Wu Calder the Most of Us, actor AJ Bowen Script is a Blueprint, actor Joe Swanberg Down in the Basement, actor Amy Seimetz Be Funny or Die, and production designer Tom Hammock Falling into Place. Animated storyboards, an archival making of What’s Next?, and a video essay from Tim Coleman Slashers Don’t Die fill out the immensely packed second layer. House in the standard Second Sight green Blu-ray Amaray for their standard lot, the front cover is gruesomely beautiful with a blood illustration of Sarni Vinson in character that’s also very telling of the film’s tone. Like all their standard releases, this one comes with no inserts inside or other tangible bonus content. The disc is pressed with another illustration of one of the masked killers. The UK certified 18 release contains strong bloody violence, as well as language and brief nudity for those of us Americans wondering at home, in a 95-minute duration to which is encoded with a region B playback.

Last Rites: “You’re Next” denounces the helpless and the defensive character topes aimed to be slaughter like cattle in an abattoir. Instead, this final girl and ferocious slasher and home invasion thriller goes against the grain and has gruesomely fun with its kills and thrills.

Limited Edition and Standard Edition Sets of “You’re Next” Available At Amazon!

Hear That? That’s EVIL Bamboolzing You! “Ultrasound” reviewed! (Magnet Releasing / Digital Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 10, 2022

Driving home from a wedding reception, Glenn’s car suffers a flat tire in the pouring rain. He finds refuge in the home of married couple, Art and Cyndi, with an extended offer to him to wait out the rain and spend the night, spending the night in bed with Cyndi at the pleading request of Art. The next morning, Glenn wakes up and Art and Cyndi are gone. Months later, Art shows up at Glenn’s apartment and shows him a videotape of a pregnant Cyndi. Unable to make sense how of his role within Art and Cyndi’s lives, Glenn agrees to meet with Cyndi to discuss future plans and wind up a romantic relationship, but when they suddenly wake up in a hospital and kept separated, they believe they lost the baby as well as the use of Glenn’s legs due to an assumed accident. What unfolds for the couple from then on is bizarre reality that doesn’t make much sense with only a few familiar chords being struck in their mind and every step of their life is being controlled by manipulators with various agendas.

A gyrating wool over the eyes suspense thriller is set to release this Friday, March 11^th. That film is “Ultrasound,” the first feature film helmed by Rob Schroeder, the producer of “Sun Choke” and “Beyond the Gates,” both films starring Barbara Crampton. Unfortunately, “Ultrasound” doesn’t star the iconic scream queen but the Conor Stechschulte script, based off the Stechschute’s erotic psychological graphic novel series, “Generous Bosom,” produces the high intense frequencies from off the illustrated pages and into the subjected characters and audiences with disorienting loops of truths and falsities. The U.S. production is a product of the Los Angeles based Lodger Films, cofounded by Schroeder and Georg Kallert, and with co-producers Brock Bodell and Spencer Jazewski.

“Ultrasound’s” narrative is a latticework of character arcs divided into two stories that only merge when Glenn and Cyndi are involved in an unusual (some could say almost magical) scheme connived by hypnotist The Amazing Art, played with sure hand nervousness by Bob Stephenson (“Lady Bird”) whose very good at the soft touch of persuasion with his innocent demeanor. Stephenson works tirelessly his Jedi mind tricks on Glenn, “My Friend Dahmer’s” Vincent Kartheiser, and Cyndi, “Phoenix Forgotten’s” Chelsea Lopez. Kartheiser and Lopez relish in their own deceptions as two strangers being joined by unintended, radical means to fulfill not one but two devious plans. Between political scandal coverups and government sanctioned alternative military tactics, Chris Gartin (“Tremors II: Aftershocks”) and Tunde Adebimpe (“She Dies Tomorrow”) couldn’t be any more different in character engrained into their repelling tangential tales sourced from the same spoiled spring but both actors root deep into the same antithesis garden as a pair of well-informed and completely in control power hungry and idealistic men in idol roles, driving Schroeder’s message right into the heart of public figure facade versus public figure character and both Gartin and Adebimpe nurture that perspective all too well. Then, you throw in a monkey wrench named Breeda Wool (“Mr. Mercedes“) into the well-oiled machine of exploitation to be the controlled outlier only to have the veil lifted for truth. Wool, probably not intendedly punned toward “Ultrasound’s” theme of pulling the wool over one’s eyes or a wolf in sheep’s clothing, casts rightful doubt as Shannon, an innocent associate being kept in the dark, much like Cyndi and Glenn. While the cast is great in roles, none of them stand out in a singular performance and are all a cog in Schroeder’s contrivance. “Ultrasound’s” cast fills in with Megan Fox lookalike Rainey Qualley (“Shut In”), Porter Duong, and Mark Burnham who dons the fleshy mask of Leatherface in this year’s Netflix original and legacy sequel “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

Tapping from the same virtual reality vein of Christopher Nolan and David Cronenberg, the idiosyncrasies of perception are no longer our own as audio, visual, and thoughts become the duped fool in “Ultrasound’s” underhanded exploitation. The concept, high in twist and turns working backwards to unfold what befuddles the hapless into a life believed depressingly real, parallelly touches upon the real-life issue of sleight of hand corruption and scandal. Because this person is an upstanding politician with a beautiful family or this other person has an advanced medical degree and is respected in the science community, we are supposed to take them at their word when in actuality, they’re pulling the metaphorical rug from under our sensorial feet to the extreme point where everything they have said and done that has crumbled down to a lie has a flummoxing and deafening aftershock effect that almost can’t be believed. The two-tale narrative connects with Art and his mismanaging of one plan that tosses his subjects into the hands of another group for what’s to become of Glenn and Cyndi and that transfer, much like the disintegrating hypnosis effect at times, is not tight enough and becomes lost in translation inside Schroeder’s illusive imagery and harsh editing to keep in story in line until a point. “Ultrasound” plagues with hot, intense colors under a low-key lighting, like a deep blue or an intense red, to often relay reality outside the confines of normality. Even though the word “Ultrasound” revolves around the manipulative use of ultrasonic frequencies, I do find the irony in Stechschulte’s story that at the center of much of the tumultuous misperception, there’s a baby often represented as there or not there depending on how we should perceive the characters and it’s like the filmmakers wanted to plug in, perhaps, the nuisances with scanning technology or dip their toes into body horror with body image.

“Ultrasound” is a great low-level, high-tech Sci-fi brainteaser ready to mess with your mind being released this Friday, March 11^th, in theaters and on demand from Magnet Releasing, a subsidiary label of Magnolia Pictures that offers innovative tales of horror and science fiction from new, creative filmmaking talent. Since a digital screener was provided, we will not delve into any audio or video evaluations, but Mathew Rudenberg, whose worked in the past with Schroeder as DP on “Sun Choke,” has come a long way since his image work on the 2008 alien-driven-zombie film “Evilution” with keeping the frame tight during medium and closeup shots to never expose to much at one time, leaving a little to imagination when the time comes to open up the room, so to speak. Zak Engel’s analogue and digital synth-score with tangible instrumental highlights from Piano and violin and Bob Borito’s dial and knob sound design swishing static and low-frequency humming sends this soundtrack into a futuristic guise on contemporary grounds that insidiously works into the grand scheme low-tech yet terrifying Sci-Fi. The 103-minute film does not include any bonus scenes during or after the credits. I keep throwing around key descriptors like low-tech for “Ultrasound” and by no means do mean that as a criticism as I speak about the simplest of tech, the original mechanism, of our body and our sensory nodes that receives data input, processes it, and transmits signals to our outputting areas and “Ultrasound” looks at disrupting the supply of data and, just like in today’s pandemic and war climate, a break in the chain can cause unforeseen turmoil that upends lives when cranked up.

Uncalcified Penal Glands and Designer Drugs are an EVIL Around-the-Clock Cocktail. “Synchronic” reviewed! (Blu-ray / Well Go USA Entertainment)

Posted by Steven Lewis on February 3, 2021

A new over-the-counter designer drug called Synchronic has been at the center of a string gruesome deaths in New Orleans. Simultaneously, two best friend paramedics, Steve and Dennis, individually battle their own life-altering personal problems while responding to the grisly emergency calls. With each horrific scene of Synchronic’s doing, Steve decides to take matters into his own hands by purchasing the remaining supply in all of New Orleans after Dennis’ teenage daughter mysteriously disappears after ingesting the drug. With no leads on the missing girl’s whereabouts and after being visited by the time abstract ramblings of the chemist responsible for creating the drug, Synchronic’s harmful hallucinogenic properties have more tangible dangers than what meets the eye leaving Steve no choice but to pop one of the pills to understand where, or when, his friend’s daughter may have disappeared to.

I’ve said it once before and I’ll say it again, Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson are visionary filmmakers with a penchant for the larger-than-life and otherworldly terrors. From their directorial of a mind-bending death cult in “The Endless” to their producing hand in Jeremy Gardner’s lost love and creature feature, “After Midnight,” and Amy Seimetz deathly contagious, “She Dies Tomorrow,” under Rustic Films, the ambitiously talented duo returns with “Synchronic,” an anything but plain spoken, time-winding, Sci-Fi tale revolving around themes of redemptive purpose and grateful circumstances stitched by the uncanny temporal effects of artificial illicit drugs. Lying somewhere between the cognitive warping psychedelic drug and feeling disconnected from the environment of a dissociative drug, “Synchronic” sojourns random grooves with the needle of time in a culminating enlightenment that now, the present, is a gift worth enjoying. Along with Moorhead and Benson’s Rustic Films, Patriot Pictures, and XYZ Films bring to fruition the filmmakers’ biggest production yet.

Like most of us during pandemic times, but not quite exactly like us who are working stressfully from home, is Anthony Mackie acting comfortably in his hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana. The “Captain America” star temporarily hangs up Falcon’s wing harness to play lonely paramedic Steve frequented by his tragic past that has led him down a path of casual flings and an inability to attach to anyone romantically. Opposite Mackie is Irish actor and “Fifty Shades of Grey” star Jamie Dornan as Dennis, a man kicking himself hard for marrying and starting a family too early in life that’s created a bizarre Prince and the Pauper dynamic where Steve and Dennis are envious on each other’s life. Mackie is pitch perfect in the timing of a seemingly tailored-to-Mackie script that is funny as it is engrossing and thought-provoking. “Synchronic” is truly the Mackie show with Dornan playing second fiddle as a compliment to Mackie’s more clandestinely troubled character who aims to upend and mend many wrongs in his life, including those of his best friend, and weaves in and out through the fabrics of time with Katie Aselton (“She Dies Tomorrow”), Ally Ioannides, Ramiz Monself, and Bill Oberst Jr (“DIS”).

Time travelling is a finnicky concept. Lots of variables have to be ironed out in order to break the planes of chronological, set-in-stone, thinking and construe time as an infinite recording always available for repeat and playback. Time travel is perhaps science fiction’s most powerhouse model, producing some of the most influential and staple films of the genre in our time that include “The Time Machine,” “The Terminator,” and “Back to the Future” that have carried out repeated viewings of admiration, a franchise legacy, and been the source of inspiration and remakes. Plot holes and flaws in these films go without saying and are considered expected, but if filmmakers can get away with convincing audiences otherwise, then expect a blast from the past, present, and future. Moorhead and Benson’s “Synchronic” has a gripping and cosmically vast story done in only one small corner of the world, the historically rich and diverse culture of New Orleans, and that isolating effect pressed upon by the distant and ominous unknown, a supremely niche and bracing style from the directors. “Synchronic,” like time jumping films before it, has the anticipated plot holes in the mechanics of the designer drug’s side effects that are seemingly straight forward to the experimenting character only after attempting a handful of pill-popping jumps. There are also no adverse butterfly effects stemmed from any of the Synchronic’s users. You’ll find yourself lost in time over these questions that routinely shoot up other films to smithereens in the ole inconsistency corral thanks to Moorhead and Benson, along with the riveting and hilarious performance from Anthony Mackie, who suck you in with their relatable and humanizing story premised around Steve and Dennis’ life regrets mended by an eye-opening slight tear in the fabric of time to understand what you have now could have been a lot worse then.

“Synchronic” is stylish, Sci-Fi craftsmanship coming to you onto Blu-ray home video from Well Go USA Entertainment. The film is also available on DVD and digitally. Presented in 16:9 widescreen format, “Synchronic” barrages with a somber and slick, yet almost alien, plating over the Creole and double gallery architectures in a mesh of robust multicultural with the grimy slums, envisioned by director of photography, Aaron Moorhead, who, in part with Ariel Vida, the production designer, is able to capture era slithers native to Louisiana lineage. The Blu-ray comes with an English language DTS-HD master audio 5.1 surround sound that’s crisply makes distinct every track element defined by individual scenes. Jimmy Lavalle returns to collaborate with Moorhead and Benson once again to compose an unique compositional score that can only be described as driving nails into your soul while also being powerfully moving without being an echo out of inspiration. The release is rated R with a runtime of 101 minutes and comes with a fair amount of bonus features including commentary with Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, a making of featurette, a previsualization (a fancy word here for live-action storyboarding with a camera phone), a VFX breakdown (which is touched upon a lot in the making of featurette), a deleted scene, and an alternate ending that will doggone blow your mind! “Synchronic” is intense medication to repair a kindred friendship falling into disrepair in this literal mind-boggling must see it to believe it thriller. Expect more great things from Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson to come!

Order “Synchornic” on Blu-ray by clicking the poster above!

EVIL’s Infectious Paranoia and Fear Spreads Rampant in “She Dies Tomorrow” reviewed! (Neon / Digital Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on August 3, 2020

A despondent Amy is convinced she will die tomorrow. Wanting nothing more than to be useful in her death, she wishes for her skin to be sewn into a leather jacket, much like hardwood floors are elegantly fabricated from cut down trees. When her friend Jane checks in on her once alcoholic friend to ensure that Amy hasn’t fallen off the sober wagon, she brushes off Amy’s death talk as nonsensical, ruminating verbiage, but Amy’s intense convictions of imminent death spread like a contagion, serving up paranoia, fear, and hopelessness to every ear reached. Like wild fire, the prospect of death begins to infect a chain of people directly and indirectly connected to the source, Amy, and there’s no stopping the terror that looms knowing that’ll their fate is sealed in an ill-fated predestination that is seemingly coming tomorrow.

What if you knew you were going to die tomorrow? What sensations could possibly overwhelm your rationality? Are there differences in how we react between apparent death and actual death? These are all questions posed without much elucidation in Amy Seimetz’s 2020 sophomore full-feature film directorial, “She Dies Tomorrow,” coming eight years behind the writer-director’s 2012 debut road trip thriller, “Sun Don’t Shine.” Seinmetz, who has battled Xenomorph’s in Oliver Stone’s “Alien: Covenant,” tried to escaped animal masked killers in “You’re Next,” and burdened the supernatural forces of a Native American burial ground in the remake of Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary,” has wriggled her way in front of the camera with indie and big budget thrillers in the last decade, but has also found a small, but significant, auteur niche behind the camera as well, exploring the human dynamic in an avant garde veneer that involves the very core of what affects us all – death – in what Seinmetz describes it’s spread as an “ideological contagion” and how processing our determined for us death date can morbidly spill into what little life is left. “She Dies Tomorrow” is majorly self-funded project by Seinmetz, whose quoted that “Pet Sematary” paid for the film in full, and it gave the filmmaker nearly total autonomy in stylizing her vision of a dry, dark comedy with science fiction and horror elements that bridge the reality and fantasy gulf. Also, Rustic Film’s Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson also serve as producer. Moorhead and Benson, two filmmakers who I admire quite a lot, have proven to invest and create new and fresh otherworldly features, such as “The Endless” and “After Midnight.”

Returning to collaborate with Seinmetz is the director’s lead star from “Sun Don’t Shine,” Kate Lyn Sheil, portraying “She Dies Tomorrow’s” first despaired, Amy. The New Jersey born actress has built a career working with Seinmetz, co-starring alongside her in such as “You’re Next” and in television with “The Girlfriend Experience,” the latter being co-created by Seimetz, but Sheil has also established a wealthy career on her outside the Seinmetz bubble, landing a reoccurring role on the Kevin Spacey turmoiled Nextflix series, “House of Cards” and staying steadily busy with filmic roles over the last five years that has been continues even into the new decade. As Amy, Sheil decompresses Amy’s gloom upon the world in a manner of a stumbling, lost soul trying to find ways of being useful after death. Amy’s alcoholic issues are relatively on the backbunner, adding past strife to her character, but not really the centric focus of Amy’s communicable mellow anxiety. Each of the infected express their contract in a multitude of different ways. “Poltergeist” remake’s Jane Adams engrosses Jane’s fear around how she’ll die that then spreads to her on-screen brother, Chris Messina (“Birds of Prey”) and his snarky wife, Katie Aselton (“Black Rock”) who process as a natural parental fear and duty to comfort and control what they conceive as the inevitable. As the spate of infections increase, the fear lineage evokes honesty, regrets, sympathy, acceptance, and wonder from the support cast that includes Josh Lucas (“Session 9), Michelle Rodriguez (“Resident Evil”), Adam Wingard (director of “The Guest” and “You’re Next”), Jennifer Kim, Tunde Adebimpe, Olivia Taylor Dudley (“Dude Bro Party Massacre III”), Kentucker Audley (“V/H/S”), and Madison Calderon.

“She Dies Tomorrow” cultivates responses to the spreading of the ideological contagion rather than express just exactly how these people will die. Are they so sure they’ll die tomorrow to the point of inflicting self-harm? The story never really takes it that far to exhibit where the individuals, riddled with anxiety, their mortal status will land, whether it’s gratuitous gruesome or just nature taking course. Seinmetz makes light their becoming stricken with dying. While I mean in a more dry humor context, I also literally mean the filmmaker makes light, like the luminescence emitting from a rainbow firefly, glow upon characters’ faces inside Jay Keitel’s cinematography when death strikes their senses like an epiphany. The grim future washes away everything in their past, a key point of obsession honed in by the filmmaker that platforms the short span till death overshadows much, if not all, of our past achievements in life. The obsession is so strong and overwhelming that you, yourself, will start thinking about your own demise, whether it’ll be tomorrow or another 50 years from now, to which then sympathy for each of these characters will begin to set in and remain until the credits roll. “She Dies Tomorrow” seethes as a colorfully cosmic thanatophobia amplified by the current pandemic climate and common death anxiety, furthering Amy Seinmetz’s growth as a gifted filmmaker.

Neon presents the distribution of Amy Seinmetz’s “She Dies Tomorrow,” coming to drive-in theaters on July 31st and landing on video on demand the following week, August 7th. Since this was a digital screener of an upcoming move, there are no home video specifications to review, but Jay Keitel’s scenes are softly lit, down to Earth, and turn ethereal during the flashing of lights. The score by the composing duo, Mondo Boys, reteams Seinmetz with the soft, haunting melodies that can invoke a classical sadness and presage inside princely compositions that included interweaving Mozart’s Requiem into the mix. There were no bonus features included with this screener nor were there any bonus scenes during or after the credits. “She Dies Tomorrow” is a well-crafted, well-timed harrowing allegory on the psychological properties of coping in the face of death.