#horror – #horrormovies – #horrorreviews – #ToYourLastDeath –
Director: Jason Axinn
Writers: Jim CirileTanya C. Klein
Starring: Morena Baccarin, William Shatner, Ray Wise
Wow. This movie was genuinely all over the place. That’s not to say it didn’t make sense or come together nicely at the end, but holy crap, what a rollercoaster ride it took to get there. Under normal circumstances I don’t recommend a movie in the first paragraph, but here you go: see To Your Last Death. You almost certainly will not be let down.
There is no real build-up as the movie begins. Miriam exits a large building through a large broken front window, covered in blood and wielding a fire ax. Looking on as the police approach are two mysterious looking characters, one of whom traces a symbol on their hand and disappears. Miriam is arrested and transported to a hospital where she begins recounting her story to the police.
Miriam and her three siblings, Ethan, Collin and Kelsy have been invited by their estranged father Cyrus to the high-rise tower which houses his corporation. Cyrus reveals that he has a terminal illness and has brought them together to determine his “legacy.” This, in turn, happens to be a clever ruse, as Cyrus begins to tell them that they are each going to be killed using devices he has constructed.
Each sibling is led off at gun point, including Miriam. Miriam is able to outsmart the henchman leading her to her doom, kicks him down an elevator shaft and ultimately escapes. This brings us to where the movie opens. Miriam is now in the hospital explaining to the police what happened.
The thing is, none of her story checks out. The police have paid a visit to her father’s headquarters and can find no evidence supporting her story. There isn’t even a sign of any kind of death occurring in the elevator shaft. The detective decides to give her some time to herself to see if she wants to change her story.
This is where things really start to go sideways. Entering Miriam’s hospital room is one of the mysterious characters we saw at the beginning of the movie. She tells Miriam she can get out of all of this by going back in time 24 hours and reliving all of the trauma she’s gone through, but making different decisions. Miriam tries escaping the hospital but once she gets out to the hallways she realizes that mass carnage has enveloped the hospital, with blood and violence everywhere. Miriam accepts her fate and chooses to go back in time in an attempt to save her siblings. Little does she know that things won’t play out the way they did the first time around.
I was honestly not properly prepared when I sat down to watch this. How crazy could an animated horror movie be, right? Wrong. It was pretty God-damned crazy. The storyline is very original, despite the fact that it goes all over the place. Each character is well thought out and excellently portrayed. The animation is awesome, especially the way the style changed for certain scenes. As a matter of fact (if you’re as into rather obscure music references from the early 1990s as I am) the artwork reminded me loosely of something KMFDM would have used.
Additionally, the actors used to do the vocalizations were perfect. Looking at each character, the voices made perfect sense coming out of their faces. It did help that Cyrus looked basically identical to Ray Wise.
All-in-all, I highly recommend this unique brain bender on all levels. Go watch To Your Last Death. Seriously; go watch it right now.
Rating: 9/10