And Then YOU Die!

Ever been bullied? Relentlessly picked on? The brunt of every joke? Enter Sam Wallace, a meek little boy who we meet in the opening scenes starkly filmed in black and white –Yelling, screaming and brutality seem to be his lot in life, and all he can do is cry. Cut to later years where we find Sam on the playground, bullied and ruthlessly picked on by the other kids.

Right off the bat this movie is filled with tension and you just know things are not going to end well. The music has wonderful ominous tones adding fuel to the anxiety. Fast forward to present day; Sam (Chuck Smith) is married, but far from happy. He fails as a husband and has trouble holding down a job. You got it kiddies, marital frustration at its best (or worst); Tessa (Ellie Church), his wife is in the bathroom getting ready for…someone? But not Sam; because he's late for work (again), and as luck would have it, half-way there, his car runs out of gas. He calls his job to let them know and gets…fired; over the phone. Yes, Sam is having a really, really bad day.

While this film has the typical kids in the pickup truck on their way to go camping; it's not just another slasher flick. Of course we know something real bad is going to happen to them, because they too play a role in making Sam's life miserable. This cool off-beat, gritty movie is a gruesomely fun romp with some very original ways to kill…

After attempting to call Tessa, Sam walks home to find her in bed with his best friend, Brad (Christopher Hunt). No match for Brad, Sam ends up beaten, presumed dead and has his body dumped in the woods, where, you guessed it, our fun-loving kids just happen to be camping. And this is where the fun really begins. You see, up until today, no one has ever taken him seriously.

Revenge is a dish best served cold and with a lovely variety of tools Sam picks up along the way, each "dish" gets delightfully more pleasing; with my favorite, the ole "Whisper Chipper". Oh, and with something very special for Tessa…the old life's a bitch and then…well, you get the picture.

The work of Brian Gaillard and Daniel Murphy is outstanding, and along with superb acting by Chuck Smith, Ellie Church and Christopher Hunt; this is a wonderful film filled with the right ingredients of bloody good dark humor and just enough gore to please slasher aficionados.

Love it; I think you will too.

I read the reviews and thought, wow this sounds great, it wasn't. I did like it and the killings were pretty cool, but the acting is bad. I gave it 5/10 because it wasn't horrible and it kept my attention. I would still recommend it, but just know the acting is pretty bad.

This independent little gem shows what brilliant movie-makers can create on a small budget but with a gung-ho cast and crew.

Chuck Smith portrays the title character who is always spit upon. We see him as a child being beaten up and bullied. In his career as a salesman and as a husband, he is once again being used and abused. But then comes this particular day we see him undergoing god-awful bad luck--from the time he gets up and tries to use the bathroom to prepare for work to his car giving out of gas on a deserted road, gets fired from his job and then has his head bashed in and left for dead by the boyfriend of his cheating wife.

He survives and is transformed into a man whose had it with being nice and accommodating and passive. He's ready to kill!

Chuck Smith is an overweight actor who has a sweet face and an adorable personality who you immediately feel sympathy for. I could find nothing about this star actor anywhere. It's like he was created just for this movie and then vanished. But we're with him all the way as he overlooks his wife's vicious indifference to him or his work as she primps in the bathroom as he continually pleads with her to let him shave and bathe and prepare for work. You instantly hate her. And then we see the husband dressing and tying his shoes as he still struggles to dress and head for his job. There's something pitiful about the way he ties his shoes and fixes his collar without benefit of a mirror--as if he's used to settling for defeat. Although his wife said she had filled up the gas tank from her shopping spree the day before, the poor guy gives out of gas on a lonely road as he heads to his job.

A vicious truck driver won't let him pass and knocks him off the road. Then a van full of kids stop by and offer him a ride but then race away as he tries to get on. More and more incidents pile on, especially his brutal boss and supervisor at work who tell him to drop dead and go to hell.

When he makes it back home, he finds his wife balling with her secret boyfriend and they attack him, convinced he's dead. But he's not. He survives the brutal beating and a new man emerges--this one dropping all of his apologetic armor and goes after everyone who mistreated him that particular day.

The way he murders each victim is gory--but fun. He does to these deadbeats what we've often wished we had done in the past to bullies or hostile coworkers or family members or classmates.

The cast look like they were gathered up from a neighborhood and told to act out the roles. The amateur coarseness of their performances adds to the authenticity of each scene. The "young people" all look pretty mature and repulsive. None are attractive and truly look like small town slobs.

Besides the dynamic performance of Chuck Smith, Christopher Hunt is good and repulsive as the boyfriend who beats up the husband.

This film was made by Brian Gaillard and Daniel Murphy who appear in a cameo dressed up as cops. We're all excited about what movie they'll make next. And it would be a cherry on top the cake if they could find a big, juicy role for the charismatic Chuck Smith who made such a memorable killer. He's got it all for major stardom.

The plot is simple - Sam Wallace is not a lucky guy - at ALL. He experienced a harrowing childhood, is married to a disrespectful cheating wife, detested at work and isn't exactly Colin O'Farrell in the looks department. One day Sams day starts badly, gets worse and worse and then climaxes horribly...and it's barely been mere hours!! Aforementioned events provide the catalyst for Sams built up anger, anxiety and stress to literally explode into a murderously brutal rage. Sam soon embarks on a journey of death and destruction, wiping out those who have hurt him without mercy

If your are in it for the bad ass kills then this film could not even hope to disappoint you. The first murder should hopefully raise a chuckle amongst those well versed in your typical slasher movie. Its a nice sly wink to audiences that I really loved. Aside from that you have some fun and creative kills mixed in with some pretty shocking and harrowing ones.

There was a heck of a lot of other stuff to love about this film. The acting for the most part is really good, particularly by the three key characters of Sam (Chuck Smith) his adulterous wife Tessa (Ellie Church) and her young beefcake on the side Brad (Christopher Hunt). I found the character of Tessa very very interesting. She was a real bitch - mainly to Sam - yet I couldn't help but like her. I think the fact that she was realistically written helped a lot. She is a bit of a villain in her own way but not in some soapy cartoonish sense.

There ARE people like Tessa in the world, however most people are not all good or all bad and you do start to see a slightly different side to her later on. I think there is human being in there - she just forgot how to be a decent one along the way. The character of Sam is a tough one because as a killer Sam makes for the most refreshing part of this film - he is a normal guy stomping around in his bedraggled work clothes, pushed so far to the brink that there is no going back from what he has started after his first kill. Yet he is still killing scores of people after all so is it wrong to root for him? Well I wouldn't want to spoil anything for viewers but you will see pretty quickly just how rough Sam has had it during his life time. The way many different people treat him in the movie is also terrible and I don't know....you just feel for the poor chap...I can think of one character straight up that I was totally rooting for Sam to kill!!! I think I lost sympathy toward the end in one scene that I didn't enjoy which is my only real criticism of the movie. Again this is veering towards spoiler territory so I will shut up. There is also a fun cameo from writer and directors Daniel Murphy and Brian Gaillard as two particularly rude and unkind cops so look out for that also!

The actual ending of And Then You Die was genius and very well done...I loved it. Again I am not giving anything aware except to say this is a film you will want to watch to the end...and I mean the VERY end.

And Then You Die is a must see indie horror film. Its fast paced, engrossing, well written & acted and has some superb kills. For a film made on a low budget it is extremely impressive to see such a professionally shot final product. Daniel Murphy just happens to have been born over here in the UK and this fact makes me even prouder. I hope he, Brian and their team bring us some more of the good stuff SOON!

Peter Bracke's amazing book about the history of the Friday 13th films, showed that audiences will come back for more of the same thing, and want to see more bizarre and creative deaths. Indeed, it is difficult to create a new spin on the whole revenge / slasher movie. The 70's / 80's were the best time for such films ala Carrie, Prom Night, The Burning. But Daniel has shown, there is still more spark to this old genre, and he didn't need a budget from Michael Bay to do it.

Its a great little film, and Daniel certainly knows his subject matter well. The plot. Well, you average every man gets revenge. Michael Douglas said at the end of Falling Down rather confused 'I'm the bad guy?'. This guy doesn't care. Indeed it feels like watching a demented home movie, which is a complement to it, since the added realism of back to basics blood and gore is the ace up its sleeve. Characters are neatly dispatched, and it all leads up to an exciting finale. There is hints of a lot of films about it, but even John Carpenter, the greatest horror director on the planet has admitted he has constantly remade Rio Bravo. All in all, its well worth checking out, and I cant wait to see what he, does next.