Miriam is the only survivor of a twisted game her own father set in motion, which left her siblings killed in horrible ways. She is brought to the hospital, where a supernatural entity, the “Gamemaster”, offers her the opportunity to re-live that event from the beginning, and maybe change the outcome since she would then be armed with the knowledge of what is about to happen. She decides to do so, hoping to save her siblings from their own father’s cruel and twisted plans. And so, once again she’s together with them in their father’s high rise building because he asked them all to come. And he once again reveals that he’s got a brain tumor that is inoperable, and that he’s going to die soon…and then continues to tell them how awful disappointments they all are. Will Miriam be able to stop the murders from happening all over again, or will it be just as bloody as the first time?
To Your Last Death is an animated action horror film from 2019, directed by Jason Axinn and written by Jim Cirile and Tanya C. Klein. It was 114% funded on Indiegogo in 2016, with a total of $52.713 raised before the film went into production. At first, this movie felt a bit strange to watch with the pretty stiff puppet animation together with the realistic cartoon style, somewhat reminiscent to the show Archer, just a bit less polished. But I got pretty quickly used to it. It gives off a comic-book art style, and there’s even some scenes where there are comic book panels, so it was obviously made in order to replicate the graphic novel style. I also liked how they used Ray Wise’s character (the father Cyrus DeKalb) to look exactly like him. The voice casting is also excellent, with several well-known names such as Morena Baccarin and William Shatner. Bill Moseley (who plays Otis in the Rob Zombie movies House of 1000 corpses and The Devil’s Rejects) also has a voice acting role here, and he’s got the voice of one of the villains (no surprise there).
The story is a little bit like Groundhog Day meets Saw, and does it indeed get bloody and vicious at times! The evil businessman’s contraptions to have his own offspring killed is pure Jigsaw-esque in style and depravity, like how one of them needs to fill a bucked of blood by cutting themselves over and over again, or else they will get decapitated. Ooooh, messy! Aside from delivering on some very graphic kill scenes, it also offers enough tension to keep you invested throughout the movie.
To Your Last Death will definitely not be everyone’s cup of tea, and even though I liked the animation style I can understand that some people might be put off by it, at least for the 1 and a half hour duration. Still, it’s a pretty fun watch and quite fast-paced. There’s a lot of violence and gore, so gorehounds should start wagging their tails to this one.
Director: Jason Axinn
Writers: Jim Cirile, Tanya C. Klein
Country & year: US, 2019
Voice actors: Morena Baccarin, William Shatner, Damien C. Haas, Bill Moseley, Ray Wise, Mark Whitten, Benjamin Siemon, Bill Millsap, Florence Hartigan, Dani Lennon, Tom Lommel
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt3748918/
Maya and her friend Dini are working at toll booths, and one night Maya is attacked by one of the drivers who appeared to recognize her: a man who claims he’s from a village called Harjosari, and he’s calling her by another name: Rahayu. Upon attacking her, the man is stopped and killed by the police, but the encounter leaves Maya with a ton of unanswered questions. Since her aunt, who raised her from a very young age, is dead and she’s got no other family to contact, she follows the inscription of an old photo which shows a young Maya with her parents, outside a large house which is supposed by be located somewhere in the Harjosari village. Together with her best friend Dini, they decide to travel from the city and find out if she might inherit that property, hoping that this might be a turn of events for them both. When they enter the secluded village, however, they quickly take notice of one apparent and strange thing about the place: the lack of any children, and a graveyard whose tombstones implies that for many years, no children have survived long after their birth. The villagers also appear to be somewhat hostile, and Maya concludes that it’s best to keep her identity a secret for the time being, representing themselves as students whose intent is interviewing the village elder because of his famous traditional shadow puppetry performances (Wayang Kulit). Maya’s real intent is, of course, to question the elder about her parents and the house, claiming her inheritance. However, as luck would have it he’s away from the village at the moment, and they need to wait until the next day. Upon finding Maya’s abandoned family home, they decide to secretly take residence there…but neither Maya nor Dini was prepared for the danger that awaits them in this village.
Nathan Gardener and his family moves to his late father’s farm somewhere in rural New England, in the hopes of living a quiet life and escape the hustle and bustle of the city. Just when they start to settle in, a meteorite crashes into their yard which emits an otherworldly color (a color out of space). One of the children (Jack) is traumatized by the event, and seems to be affected in strange ways. He becomes obsessed with the well in the garden and claims he’s got a “friend” there. Strange flowers and plants starts growing, animals suffer grotesque mutations, and the Gardener family’s life transforms into a colorful nightmare.
In the hopes of being able to bond with her soon-to-be stepchildren, Grace is staying with them in a remote winter cabin over the holidays. Their father was supposed to stay with them, but is unexpectedly called to work and he cannot refuse, which leaves her alone with the children. With the holidays just around the corner she hopes that they will be able to have a good time, but the isolation and a blizzard traps them inside the lodge. Then, mysterious and frightening things start happening, keeping Grace wondering if it’s just the isolation and the strained relationship to the children, or if it’s the demons from her past that have come back to haunt her.
Bird Fitcher is a teenage girl who loves old things, and is working a part-time job at an antique store. When a co-worker brings in an old Polaroid camera, she’s really excited, and starts using it, snapping pictures of her friends. She soon realizes that something is not quite right with the camera, as the photos show a shadowy figure looming over the persons on the photo…and very soon it becomes apparent that the photos taken with the Polaroid camera has a very deadly effect.
Nina is a Russian woman, who lives together with her young daughter Sasha. She has left her abusive and alcoholic husband, but he still causes trouble for her by coming to her home drunk and demanding to come inside and see his daughter. All Nina wants is a new and better life for herself and Sasha, and after joining a typical “Russian brides” website (dating website for people looking for a Russian woman) she gets in contact with a reclusive billionaire from USA. After traveling abroad to meet her new man, she marries him very soon thereafter. However, she soon finds out that the seemingly nice man has other motives…and Nina eventually realizes that she’s put both herself and her daughter in a dangerous position.
It’s 1968, and we’re in a small town called Mill Valley where a group of teens are dressing up and getting ready for Halloween. This trio consists of Stella, an aspiring horror writer, a nervous nerd named Auggie, and the prankster Chuck. It’s their final year of trick-or-treating on Halloween together, and they’ve planned to use it as an opportunity to play a trick on the local school bully Tommy. This ends up with Tommy’s car getting vandalized, and he and his gang starts chasing them into a drive-in theater. While the trio is desperately looking for a hiding place, they all enter a young man’s car. His name is Ramon, and Stella immediately feels attracted to him as it becomes clear that he also shares the same passion for horror movies as she does. When Tommy and his gang are out of the way, Stella suggests that they visit the haunted house nearby: the old Bellows family residence. The Bellows family had a daughter, Sarah Bellows, whom they locked inside the house. No photos of the girl existed, and the story tells that she hanged herself inside the house after being accused of causing the death of several children after reading them some of the scary stories she used to write. When the group of teenagers enter the old house, they find the secret entrance to the room where the family kept Sarah locked in…and one of her “Scary Stories” books. Stella brings it back home with her, but when she starts reading it, a new story suddenly starts writing itself on one of the blank pages. Sarah Bellows is back at telling scary stories again…
Dani and Christian, a young American couple, are at the brink of breaking up. Christian has already started planning a trip abroad with his friends and is more or less starting to walk out the door on the relationship, but after Dani experiences a horrible family tragedy where she loses her parents and sister in a murder-suicide, Christian can’t make himself break out. Months later, when Dani finds out about his planned trip to Sweden with his friends, she invites herself along with them. One of Christian’s friends, the Swede Pelle, brings them all to a traditional “Midsommar” celebration in a secluded area called “Harga”. All seem to be flowers and sunshine, until it becomes clear that they’ve ventured into a sect whose “traditions” proves to be rather disturbing.
