SHE DIES TOMORROW Review
Amy Seimetz, usually known for her acting credentials (even though she has another film, SUN DON’T SHINE, under her feature-length directorial belt) has a great idea on her hands. Indeed, as director and writer of the frustratingly blank psychological thriller SHE DIES TOMORROW, Ms. Seimetz’s film illustrates the tried and true tale of a great story idea that fails to fully come together.
A unique “contagion” film, SHE DIES TOMORROW concerns a potentially supernatural entity spreading the idea of one’s next-day death from one unlucky sap to another. The first victim to fall under this mania-tinged sickness is Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil), a recovering alcoholic who, after a strange encounter with an “infected” person, believes she will in fact, die tomorrow. She doesn’t know who or what will kill her or how she will specifically meet her doom, but she FEELS it in her bones that her life will end the next day. This line of thinking of course concerns her friend, Jane (Jane Adams), who sees the morose and withering Amy as partaking in another sort of “look-at-me” performance once again. However, just as soon as she leaves her sister’s side, Jane starts to believe she will die tomorrow as well and as the film moves on at an ever glacial pace, Jane and Amy begin to transfer this sickness to friends and strangers alike.
In a way, this film reminded me a bit of David Robert Mitchell’s exquisite horror flick, IT FOLLOWS, due in part to the two film’s shared quiet malevolence. For example, the two film’s allowed their quiet horrors to act as mouthpieces for grander themes and metaphors, with Mitchell’s film acting as a violent and spectral allegory for the lasting scars induced from sex such as rape and STD’s and Seimetz’s film dealing with concepts of madness, impending mortality, and even the way in which the world chooses to believe a woman’s word. Indeed, as SHE DIES TOMORROW goes onto its cliched quiet ending, the theme of people confronting their mortality in various ways, some manic, others idly sullen, and others simply content, grants legitimate weight to Seimetz’s film after the film’s final moments. While as with most things, I could be off in my designations, the fact that both films even enter the notion of these ideas speaks to the depth hiding within both.
That being said, Seimetz and co.’s actual film at hand lacks any engaging suspense or pace. While the director builds an intriguing “monster” throughout her film, showing rather than telling the way in which her strange sickness works, the film surrounding its beast feels lifeless and aloof. Characters, particularly that of Amy, are rather flat and one-note seemingly focused on being broken or stoic in one way or another and Seimetz herself introduces annoyingly monotonous scenes that slow down this less than 90 minute movie to distracting lulls. As a result, the performances hardly make any impact, even though Adams brings the most energy here, effectively entering the throes of mania that could be of her own doing or something much more otherworldly. Otherwise, every cast member just spends their screen time slowly becoming subdued by the thought of their impending doom, waxing philosophically here and there or simply waiting idly for the end to come.
On the more technical side, Seimetz finds some moments that work, relying on wide, long shots that, for the most part, capture the existential dread at work in the film’s story. On a humble budget, the filmmaker also manages to create a “monster” that is effective in both creation and budget, as SHE DIES…’ baddie is simply just series of off-screen flashing lights. Even so, the scenes where characters come into contact with this unseen monster remain the most intriguing, mixing feelings of awe and terror in humble measures. Despite that, the film still falls into the typical visual trappings and flow of any other sort of indie, mumble-core-esque ilk with its wistful moments of characters doing nothing, sparse set-pieces built around repetition, and a cast of characters that are either boring or overly quirky in some way or form.
All of this paints a rather haphazard picture of Ms. Seimetz’s work when the tragic reality is that SHE DIES TOMORROW is a wonderful idea surrounded by less than wonderful pieces. In her pursuit to capture the feeling of existential dread, Seimetz has crafted a film that is about as fun at being at some hipster’s funeral.
2.5/5
