Death of Me (2020) – A Movie A Day 2021 #27
Death of Me (2020) – A Movie A Day 2021 #27
Today’s movie is Death of Me, a psychological/supernatural horror movie starring Maggie Q and Luke Hemsworth (brother of Chris and Liam). The movie was released in October of 2020, and it was recently added to Netflix which is where I watched it. After watching The King of Fighters recently I’ve been on the lookout for more Maggie Q movies that I haven’t seen, so this was an easy choice for my movie of the day.
Death of Me is about a couple, Christine (Maggie Q) and Neil (Luke Hemsworth), who are vacationing in a small village off the coast of Thailand. Christine and Neil wake up on what is supposed to be their final day on the island with no memory of the previous night and with their rental room in shambles. They don’t have much time to think about what happened as they scramble to catch a ferry to the mainland so they can head home, but when they both discover that their passports are missing, they begin to suspect something is seriously wrong. Christine and Neil then begin to try to piece together the previous night, only to uncover a dark mystery that begins with the couple finding a video on Neil’s phone of him apparently killing Christine.
From there the movie progresses in a Wicker-Man-esque way with the locals becoming more sinister as they prepare for a local festival. Christine’s health begins to deteriorate and she sees flashes of frightening images, but are the things she’s experiencing real, or are they just hallucinations? Can she even trust Neil after what she saw on the video? It all builds up to a mostly satisfying climax with more than a little predictability.
For me, the best part of Death of Me is Maggie Q’s performance. The mystery of the movie feels familiar and is often pretty easy to predict, but Maggie Q helps sell every scene with her mixture of fear, annoyance, and anger. There is one scene late in the movie that I won’t spoil, but it’s a great and surprising moment of Christine having just about enough of the way everyone has been treating her, and she finally decides to do something about it. I’m sure you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it.
Overall though, I thought Death of Me was just okay. It’s not particularly scary like the cover artwork may lead you to believe, and the mystery doesn’t feel super mysterious to me. The movie feels like it emulates similar plots including the aforementioned Wicker Man (which is actually mentioned in the movie by Neil), but I am glad I kept watching until the end. I was feeling a lot of frustration just like Christine was (well, maybe not just like Christine, but I was getting annoyed with how people were treating her), and seeing Christine lash out was pretty satisfying. I’d say give this a watch is you really enjoy psychological thrillers, but maybe watch the trailer first to get a feel for the tone of the movie.