A Horrible Way to Die

Billing itself as a realistic portrayal of insanity in the mind of a serial killer, I was left bitterly disappointed.

Expecting something like "Tony : London Serial Killer" what I got was a very disappointing and shallow look at a movie that wants to be more than it is.

There are many problems. One of them being the irritating way that the film has been shot. Being a very shaky cam, at first I liked it and appreciated it for being different and gave it realism, but after a while it began to become a distraction. Deliberate out of focus shots were also contributing to the irritating value that the movie was rapidly growing.

The fact is, you never feel like you are getting into the mind of this killer. You simply feel as though you are following him. Neither investing time in anything he is doing. You know he is a bad guy because he kills people, but any depth to this killer as a person, is non existent.

The acting was fine and there were some genuine decent moments, but the film wants realism, and the biggest killer to the realism is in the ending. I am not going to spoil it, but I thought "no way, this is basic horror movie stuff". I thought that it was a cheap way to end what was a film that was lacking the positives that made films like "Henry" and "Tony" the films that they are in the Serial Killer sub genre.

If you want a good serial killer movie, check out the films I just mentioned. You could probably give this one a miss!

A Horrible Way to Die was in a 3 DVD movie box presented by Night Vision. I bought two of these boxes months ago, and I started the Psycho Killers box.

The name paints a totally different picture of the film than what it truly is. Most of the actually deaths in this movie don't seem that horrible when you only see some mild gore here and there. Yes, a horror movie doesn't necessarily need that much gore, but when a movie has a title like this, you're expecting that. Also A Horrible Way To Die is a very straight-forward title, but the movie is far from it. The movie is quite short yet it's very slow. It takes too long for anything to happen, which makes it seem more like a seriously boring art drama.

The "seriously boring art drama" feel was also enhanced by the way this film was shot. While it enhanced the creepy, haunting atmosphere, it also annoyed the hell out of me. That kind of shaky shots are good every once in a while, but not all through the movie. It's not easy to look at, and therefore not easy to follow. It wasn't just the visual side that was hard to follow. Of course I don't believe in chronological narrative anymore, because breaking the story with flashbacks work most of the time, but in A Horrible Way to Die it was sometimes really hard to tell when something happened. Of course this was enhanced by the cinematography, because you can't always see the characters and what they look like, and then realise when that scene took place and all that.

The writing of this film is good though. The dialogue is as amazing as it tends to be in horror movies, it's so real. The story itself is not bad, apart from the story being so slow. The good writing can be seen in little things, like amazing twist, dialogue and whatnot. The slowness itself is not a sign of bad writing in general, but when you watch a horror movie it's frustrating when everything happens at the last minute. But the story might work well as a novel.

A Horrible Way to Die is an interesting movie to say the least. While it's not actually good and I didn't enjoy watching it, it definitely stands out from the horror movies I've watched.

Other than knowing a brief plot outline of an escaped murderer on the hunt of his ex-girlfriend, I had no idea what I was getting into when going to see Adam Wingard's latest, A Horrible Way To Die. Just so you're aware, as far as plot goes, that is all you have to know before heading off to see this film. As for an overall visceral pleasing experience… well, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As long as the beholder isn't epileptic or easily prone to motion sickness, that is. Both of which I am not, enabling me to absolutely love this film.

Constant shots of close-ups and not just on the actors' faces but knuckles, waists and other body parts (get your mind out of the gutter) as well as random objects around them effectively brought me into the characters' personal space with an intimacy most other mainstream films lack. Never is the camera shaky either, it's more of a purposeful fluidity, like imitating the human eye as it occasionally wanders while in conversation with another person. A good example of a film to compare the camera movement to would be Gaspar Noe's Irreversible. I don't me to drone on and on about one technical aspect of the film, but when something even the most casual moviegoers can not ignore is applied in such a non-gimicky way it's praise can not go unnoticed.

So, now that my praise for the way in which the film was shot has gone on the record I'll briefly dive into other elements of the film, mainly acting, plot and score:

Acting - The two stars of the film, Aj Bowen and Amy Seimetz, both turn in a-list performances. Can't wait to see these two make the leap into Hollywood and gain the larger attention that they both deserve. Plot – Keeping the story simple and absent of any convoluted sub-plots might be too dull for some to sit through… sucks for those people. Personally, I was ready for it to be an hour longer. Score – Nothing too extraordinary here, but it works for what it's trying to accomplish. Overall I'd say A Horrible Way To Die is a great way to spend 85 minutes

Well, the title ain't lying. Lots of people die in this movie, either on screen or off, and one person comes very close to dying, and all of the methods used are pretty horrible.

"A Horrible Way to Die" brings an admittedly unique spin to the serial killer movie. It uses mixed up chronology to tell the story of a woman whose boyfriend, a convicted serial killer, escapes from prison and comes back to find her, and the efforts of a new love interest to help her and keep her safe. The wacky order in which the story is told makes it feel richer than it probably is, and there are some major plot twists toward the end (up there with some of the biggest) that are handled less than delicately (you can practically hear the gears grinding at one point as the movie shifts into an entirely new direction). And stylistically it feels like a film made by a film student who's been itching to get his hands on a camera and can't control himself once he has -- the camera is always, I mean ALWAYS, moving, randomly zooming, drifting off to the edges of the frame, going out of focus. It's exceedingly annoying.

But the film does have a morbidly grim appeal to it. I can't say I necessarily enjoyed watching it, but I can say that it was memorable.

Grade: B-

I'm clearly running out of movies to watch on Prime and Shudder, which is why I eventually gave in and decided to settle for A Horrible Way To Die. Before delving further into the review, to be fair, I should state that just a couple hours before watching it, I saw one of the most incredible films I've ever had the pleasure of watching-'Magic Magic'; so 'A Horrible Way To Die' had a lot to live up to.

I had been reading around about this movie for a while. After all, with a title like that, you can't help but wonder what it's all about. I, of course, presumed that AHWTD was just another B-Horror movie belonging to the 'torture-porn' genre, and therefor, most likely a waste of time. But after reading several reviews which hailed the film for it's magnificent writing and acting, I decided to give it a go.

The first thing that I'll say about this movie is that the cinematography is terrible. I mean, really, it's almost unwatchable-maybe the director had some artistic statement in mind (attempting to give the film a feeling of 'visceral reality'?), or if the camera man just didn't have a the ability to stay in focus or to keep a steady hand. Regardless, it didn't work. I'm a man that values aesthetic, and I like movies to look beautiful-and if they don't..Well, I expect there to be a reason for that (for instance, it makes sense that the camera work looks shaky in a movie like 'The Blair Witch Project'). I suppose some might argue that the hand-held shaky camera-work adds a flair of 'grit' to the film, but I would argue that it does not (after all, Bad Leutenant got it's point across while still staying in focus), and instead creates the impression that the cinematographer was relying on a corny gimmick to cover up his lack of talent. There is absolutely no reason that half the film has to be out of focus.

Secondly, I would have to disagree with the assertion that the writing in 'A Horrible Way To Die' is anything above average. In fact, I would say a lot of the dialogue seems forced. It's hard to tell in movies like this if this is the product of the script itself or bad acting, but I'm going to go with the latter. I've seen some of these actors in other films and they were capable enough, and at times their talent does shine through the dull dialogue.

Another thing that annoyed me was the depiction of Alchoholics Anonymous. Having struggled with addiction for many years, I know the format of a 12 Step meeting like the back of my hand. Now do not misinterpret what I'm saying-I am no 'Big Book Thumper', but I am starting to get really annoyed by how all these movies are depicting Alchoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous. To me it just shows sloppiness..After all, how hard would it be to approach a member and just ask, 'Hey, we're making this movie, and a central theme is alcoholism, so do you think you could help us out to accurately depict a 12 Step program?". Clearly that conversation never took place. I almost feel as if they got their impression of 'The Program' from other movies.

Anyway, I have to admit, I only watched 3/4 or the film, because quite frankly, the quality became to abrasive for my taste. I don't mind low-budget films if the film-maker knows how to work within that limited budget (a great example of this is Mark Flannegans' 'Absentia', or the Sci-Fi time travel film 'Primer', supposedly filmed with a $7,000 budget), but that is not the case with 'A Horrible Way to Die', which instead looks at best like an ambitious student film that despite it's efforts, fails.

I will say that for what they were given to work with in terms of the script, the acting was pretty good, and that's probably the movies' one redeeming quality. Still though, I wouldn't waste my time with this one. I see a lot of people making claims like it's a 'hidden gem', and I imagine if you went into the movie with the expectation that it was going to be the the worst film in the history of cinema you might walk away with that point of view, but in to me it was an incredibly mediocre, predictable thriller.