TILL DEATH Review–Blood and Handcuffs Make Magic
Chad Collins
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Starring Megan Fox and Callan Mulvey
Written by Jason Carvey
Directed by S.K. Dale
Till Death is a conventional woman-in-peril thriller elevated by patches of grisly violence and a committed, intensely physical performance from star Megan Fox. There is cat and there is mouse. There’s an isolated lake house. There’s no service or car. Yet, for all the familiarity– and make no mistake, Till Death is very familiar– the darker undercurrents and gruesome set-up render Till Death a chilly, killy way to spend a Friday night.
Also Read: Megan Fox Would Love to See a TV Series Sequel to JENNIFER’S BODY
S.K. Dale’s directorial debut adheres closely to the genre’s current trajectory. Megan Fox’s Emma (no surname) is trapped in an unhealthy, abusive relationship while she simultaneously reels from a violent assault that occurred eleven years earlier. The roots of trauma are near routine now, and while that itself isn’t a bad thing, the early goings of Till Death are dramatically inert. Fox is a capable actress, but the approach is too slice-of-life tepid to generate much interest. It feels real, and Fox sells her trauma with just a wince and a sigh, but her backstory is too familiar yet ambiguous to resonate the way Dale intends, despite Fox’s best efforts in two-inch Louboutins.
Husband Mark (Eoin Macken) exudes such suffocating menace, audiences are primed for the worst when he blindfolds Emma en route to their country lake house in the dead of night. He’s looking to rekindle the romance. She’s looking for an escape. The house itself has a degree of haunted house magnetism before the real threat even arrives. After an intimate night, Emma awakens handcuffed to Mark’s wrist, and after asking about her dreams, he shoots himself in the head.
Till Death’s central conceit is a good one. Though little to no effort is made to delve beyond the surface of, yes, “till death do us part,” the literalism of being chained to her husband’s corpse is chaotically engaging, a dour and gruesome joke replete with dramatic opportunities. Those opportunities arrive shortly thereafter, breaking down the front door in search of both diamond-packed safe and Emma, the only person left alive with the combination. They’ve been hired by Mark, and within the span of one truly awful morning, her entire life is upended.
Fox is fiercely physical in the role, acting through body and staging more than spoken word. She drags her husband’s corpse around the property, stumbling down rickety stairs, grunting, and remarking off-handedly what a bastard he really was. It’s funny in a grimly humorous way and Fox sells the twisted tone ably. The tension, too, remains remarkably high as Emma surreptitiously evades the intruders, desperate to escape.
With a small cast and limited scope, Till Death confidently belies its own small budget, filling the periphery with a tactile sense of place, vehicular chaos, and well-choreographed stunt work. It’s a combination of Gerald’s Game and Knuckleball, an underrated snowbound home invasion thriller from 2018. Granted, there’s little commentary or purpose to the whole affair– it is simply violence for violence’s sake– but when it’s this well-executed, it hardly matters.
Were it not for the laggard beginning and lack of much purpose, Till Death might be the kind of under-the-radar genre feature that, well, endures until death. Yet, as it stands, it’s a solidly crafted home invasion slasher that relishes in its own bloodshed and commanding central performance. Megan Fox is always a welcome horror star, a contemporary scream queen with more grit and grunge than most, and she’s as good here as she’s ever been.
Till Death is gruesome, sinuous, and electrifying. It does little to reinvent or upend the genre, but it’s twisted enough to stand out in a crowded field. There’s no room for more intruders in the subgenre– the home is at capacity– but an exception could be made for Till Death. It’s chilly, dicey, and a helluva fun time.
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Till Death
Summary
Till Death overcomes its more familiar beats with an intensely physical Megan Fox performance and a bloody sense of menace.
