Death Of Me is Proof Horror Needs Darren Bouseman
The oft-forgotten filmmaker returns with a film that bears his hallmarks — ones which feel more right, reductive, and necessary than ever.
Darren Bouseman knows gross-out; he always has. In 2004, he placed Michael Marks in a Venus fly trap mask. Years later, he self-funded and helmed a goth musical that’s (mostly) about organ harvesting. And now in two thousand and twenty, Bouseman is filming unspeakable things occurring to the second hottest Hemsworth’s body only halfway into Death Of Me, which released on VOD this Friday. The man knows his brand.
But that brand is, against all odds, aging gracefully — something no one would’ve thought if they’d seen Saw IV’s sloven conclusion. Bouseman’s gore-fests aren’t graceful. If anything, their shocks are purposefully jagged-edged. And that’s glorious. To see Bouseman at his best is to feel thirteen again, aglow with the rush that, through viewing his work, you’re getting away with something quietly transgressive. You get to feel inspired by a filmmaker who still, it seems, feels lucky to secure any financing, who made weird and killer stuff on his own bloody dime and damn sure would again. In film’s COVID era, where it’s hard to imagine many films getting made at all, where the next Darren Lynn Bouseman is out there but “out there” is “indoors,” getting grossed-out by the real Lynn-Bouseman feels relieving. Its very 2004 — and that’s nice.
Death Of Me is not a counterpoint to the horror. trends of 2020 — it has “elevated” elements. But it is a reminder, like Lars Damoiseaux’s Yummy or Joe Begos’ VFW, that b-movie sucker-punches may play better than high-gloss dread at the moment. Does that mean that Death Of Me is a successful film? I’m not sure it matters. The primary pleasure of watching it is that a series of unfortunate and convoluted events play out against a gorgeous landscape, the enduring dissonance of trouble occurring in paradise. When Christine and Neil (Maggie Q and Luke Hemsworth) wake up hung over in the first five minutes — with no memory of the night before — and there’s talk of an impending storm on the television, you know both the memories and storm will be contemptible. You’re counting on it; this is gut-punching stuff.
On that level, Death To Me succeeds. After trapping it’s protagonists on the island they were traversing for work purposes, it leads them to footage of their missing night — which includes drinking, sex, and Neil choking Christine to death. He then buries her underground! It’s a lot! And to Bouseman and crew’s credit, the film never jumps off that accelerant — though its pace can lag, its twists never do. The film careens from set piece to set piece, only stewing when lives are on the line. Which they frequently are. This is where Death Of Me shines, as a travelogue of island horror perils. No single stop is life-changing; each are memorable snapshots. The Bozeman brand delivers.
And therein lies the rub: Death Of Me is the product of many chefs and kitchens. What it delivers in salacious but artful bursts of violence, it lacks in emotional payoffs. The script by Ari Margolis, David Tish, and James Morley III doesn’t eat its own tail so much as gag on it in a desperate attempt to keep its story armed to the teeth with twists: first it’s a tale of mystery, then black magic, then marital mistrust, then magic and mystery again, only with diminishing returns at each reentry. That goes double for the performances, which veer from committed to rushed at a moment’s notice. And that’s especially true of the finale, which drifts into xenophobic waters with almost blinding speed. (This, in particular, makes it hard to recommend Death Of Me outright, despite the film’s good intentions.)
But I’m still thinking about Death Of Me in spite of all that — I am thinking about what I saw and can’t unsee. In some respects. Bouseman is lucky the pandemic delayed the highly anticipated Spiral: From The Book Of Saw, to a slot long after Death Of Me’s release; where I might’ve attributed the former’s success to nostalgia had it actually released this May, there’s no way I’ll do that next year. Some people are meant to make this sort of stuff. Stuff which dims the lights and shuts your brain off for you effortlessly. Something that distracts and inspires even if it aggrieves, work that’s better for its seams showing. Darren Lynn Bouseman was meant to make Death Of Me, even though it sort of misfires. He deserves to make movies. And horror still needs him.
