All You Need Is Death

Holy Crow this is a horrible movie. It's interminably slow. Never really gets going.

I get the feeling g the director thinks he's the next David Lynch, but to be that you need talent. And he has none.

It's sort of an unfolding mystery that has more layers than an onion and stinks twice as much.

The "actors" deliver their lines in monotone which makes watching this flick even more excruciating.

According to IMBD, this movie made about seven grand off a budget of around 200K US. There is no wonder no one went to see it. It's genuinely unwatchable. And this is coming from someone who is a fan of Irish horror flicks.

Miss it. It won't miss you.

This is not a movie that it is easily defined. It is part folk horror, part Gothic horror and unique in its own right.

Two people. Anna and Aleks search for old folk songs the rarer, the better. They visit an old woman, Rita who sing them an ancient and forbidden song. The song in an ancient and unknown language is creepy and the way the old woman belts it out is actually quite unnerving. This is the bare bones of the story and I am not going to go further into depth as this needs to be experienced without knowing the plot of outcome. This is a wonderful film that explores all the darkness that the song describes.

There is a bleakness to this film that gives the sense that nothing good is going to come from discovering the song or the story behind it. There is a real sense of unease and dread as the story unfolds and towards the end, it is not for the faint of heart.

This is a movie that really ups the stakes in the horror genre, it is well acted and well told, a visual treat that while some might find slow and a little confusing, other will love.

Give it a watch and decide for yourself.

The idea of tracking down a forgotten, cursed folk song for a movie is pretty good. This isn't that movie.

What follows an ok beginning just gets worse and worse until a absolutely dismal ending. Is the curse passed on to the woman who memorizes it, is the curse passed on to anyone who hears it, or is the curse even a curse? You won't know after watching the movie because the people making this mess have no idea either.

The best you are going to get out of this is some nice looking location footage and a performance by Olwen Fouéré that ends way to early. Everything else is a nonsensical mess where nothing set up pays off. Truly and awful film.

You know when you watch a movie for the first time, and you can tell that it's a new favourite even though you've not had a repeat viewing yet? This was one of those times. The atmosphere and weight and interminable sense foreboding that this film has is incredible, and it's inventive in every way that I wanted it to be, and it's a a film that I'm going to enjoy coming back to in the future

Part folk horror, part body horror, part quest for music that will change your perception and open you up to new experiences (be they good or bad), All You Need Is Death follows a pair of folk song archivists as they track down an obscure song that has never been recorded, only to discover that bad things happen to everyone who hears the song

The sound design is everything; it's peak Lynch in terms of ominous background noise, and the actual music, very importantly for a film about music, hits the mark every time.

So it's always interesting to go into a film based on the reviews and accolades it has gotten and the fact that it's a foreign film. There's a certain allure to its potential and ability to give us something new. Sadly I can't really speak to any of that being a function of this film. It just never feels like anything is really happening outside of the engagement with the actual music being sourced and the characters it's sourced from. I really did want this to be a Lynchian world of bizarre visuals and a truly uncomfortable exploration of the human plight through attaining that which we shouldn't. It never rose to that level but I think there's the possibility they can attempt again to get there on the next go around.