She Dies Tomorrow

She Dies Tomorrow (2020), Directed by Amy Seimetz.

She Dies Tomorrow is the sophmore film from Amy Seimetz that's stylised visuals result in it feeling often times weightless and lacking density.

Seimetz's use of visual story telling here is impeccable, from the neon colours representing the central cursed idea, to the poignant lighting sparsley used, conveying terror when it is - the cinematography and visuals are by far the standout here; along with the sharp editing that keeps the pace on this albeit short film as it is, at a fluid pace throughout.

However, as much as I enjoyed this - mostly for its intriguing premise - unfortuantely, the execution just isn't fully there. Sitting at just one hour and 25 minutes, She Dies Tomorrow just didn't feel like there was enough meat on the bones; we get introduced to such an array of characters, yet spend such little time with any them to really understand who they are. As the film progresses, characters keep getting introduced but our interest in them fades more and more with every new addition. Because of this, the film begins to feel weightless.

The themes of mental health and the literal fear of death are poignant and relevant here, giving us something to relate to but because of our absence of any real main character, Seimetz almost throws the themes out there and hopes something will stick with audiences - and like most 'deep' films, its up to interpretation. This ambiguity some will like, adding to repeat viewings but not me, this comes across as unintentional and a cop-out for actually crafting an organised and cohesive film.

The acting throughout is stellar across the board, I just wish the cast had more to play with in their characters.

This feels like a common case of style over substance.

You could not pay me enough to watch this nothing burger again. Already, I can hardly believe I watched the whole thing...

I like visually interesting art house-ish type of stuff, but this was just boring with no pay off. It's just poor story telling. Save your time and skip this one.

It's like mixing the taste of a modern film student with the "can't write an ending" constipation of Stephen King. Only in this case there wasn't even an attempt at an ending.

I really appreciate the ideas this movie portrays. I believe this movie is commentary on nihilism. How nihilism can be very contagious, and can be easily spread like a disease. It was an interesting, and very important topic that not a lot of films explore. However I was just so bothered how needlessly repetitive and annoying the presentation was. there were so many scenes that attempted an experimental artistic style that came across as cringe-worthy. there was Nothing that was emotionally deserved in this movie, and I wished Amy Seimetz would've just develop the ideas and story more. Instead this movie just feels so static and lifeless, and when it was finished I wasn't at all satisfied.

There were definitely decent ideas and concepts going into this movie, like I said the subject matter and the topic was really interesting. Although I was just disappointed at this attempted artistic expression that in the end came across as pretentious.

5/10

Cause this film really felt like I'm being trolled. But I am going to approach this film seriously because in some way I can relate.

The film had a promising start, and I was interested in what this film is going to be about. Was it going to be about a destructive depression? Maybe about how this state affects the main lead or her closest ones? Well, no.

The film is just a mess of half-baked philosophical ideas that go nowhere and a bunch of "you know what would've looked cool" scenes with good music. I wouldn't call it artsy since they seemed to have a basic understanding of what they wanted to show and I understand that (it's easy to understand some of the basic allegories). Although some scenes are intentionally stretched out to get the film to full feature-length. And don't get baited on the reviews that say that this film is deep, I have seen internet videos and conversations on the themes of the film that were much more deep and compelling.

The film had no ending, it seems that for some reason (maybe writing themselves into a corner) the film had a different ending than whatever was planned since there were lots of weird cuts and the ending felt very disconnected. So, I am assuming they had no idea how to finish this or the ending was re-shot.

The idea of contagious suicidal thoughts did not impress me at all since I've seen a small film called Pontypool (2008) and it was great.

The tones of mortality and the meaningless efforts of trying to fill your life with anything you deem (or convince yourself) important are very mishandled. I mean, you can achieve a better story with the core idea of "anesthesia of life" that people administer onto themselves, like career, children, hobbies, anything on that matter. The writing was just too unrefined and raw, the dialogue and the delivery were so bizarre and out of place that I seriously thought I am being trolled. The script could've used more work. As nonsensical as it sounds, the film had real potential.

I know my depression, I had thoughts of me dying tomorrow many times, this is just not it, this is not how this works. This is not smart writing. Futility and mortality are handled so much better if you project those through a well-written character, the best example I can think of is Rust Cohle from True Detective (Season 1).

The film was short, not intentionally, but because they didn't know how to write the ideas into the story.

I rated this film 3 stars for some visuals and ideas, but it ultimately disappointed me because I saw the potential in it. They should've spent more time and effort on this.

I cannot recommend this to general audiences or horror fans, because this is not a good psychological thriller or horror, and this is not a good film altogether. I'm sorry.