Death Do Us Part (2014) review

The film places us along for the ride with a group of (seeming) friends on their way to a rental cabin for a bachelor/bachelorette party ahead of the wedding of Kennedy and Ryan (real life married duo Julia and Peter Benson). You have to give the film some credit in terms of fleshing out the rest of the group: post-frat-doofus Chet (Kyle Cassie), for example, starts out as being the type of insufferable cannon-fodder you hope gets offed first but evolves into someone who just doesn’t know their way in life and compensates the only way that seems familiar. Aggro-jerk Derek (Benjamin Ayres), Ryan’s cousin, starts out as being a too-cool-for-school bully-type but you learn the reason why he is so on edge and smoking constantly and it totally makes sense. Kennedy’s sister Hannah (Christine Chatelain) seems like a smart-ass who can’t go with the flow but is harmless – until you figure out what her deal really is. Emily (the rock-solid Emilie Ullerup) is all sweetness and innocence but her dingy-ness is a marker of more to offer than what it might seem.

Another thing with this cast – they aren’t being played as college age or younger types, they are played as adults. There are a few lines here and there that allude to this, and while it might seem like a non-thing, I loved seeing a film that recognizes that you can have adults in a slasher-setup and it can work. Time and time again you have the same teen-brainlessness paraded out because it is, ultimately, low hanging fruit. Write them dumb and it doesn’t seem too off the mark. So, definitely points for that.

So with all this praise, does the film work? Well, no, not really (until the ending, that is). There is entirely too much lead up in terms of this group dealing with each other and their respective issues and circumstances. It feels kind of yell-y and melodramatic and way too drawn out. One could argue that sitting with these people for a while before things start to go south is important in terms of all that solid character development I laid out above. You could make that argument, but, you could make that argument if the first slug of time was cut in half and the killer-slasher-procedural stuff was increased. I think these characters remain intact if the whole first spell of the film was much shorter.

Part of the reason I think this is, ultimately, these people are kind of shitty to each other. There are infidelities and lies and all else and at one point I wondered if the film would go the route of Danielle Harris’ film Among Friends where all are held against their will to confront their sins of being crap family members and friends etc. But it doesn’t go that route, and instead is a long slog through this slow rolling out of data. Not a unforgiveable sin by any measure.

What is close to unforgivable, however, is the inconsistency of the script at times. There are absolutely awesome lines and exchanges that are sadly intermixed with total clunkers. It makes the rhythm feel disjointed because you expect the roll and crackle of great lines to continue and it just gets plowed to the ground with stinkers only to recover itself again. This is grating because you know they have the capacity to write at a high level. A line in particular about waiting out the killer was delivered and written as perfectly as it could possibly be (references vampires)…but is followed up soon after by a dumb-headed sarcastic joke amidst frantic stress running from the killer. It works in one spot, falls like a lead balloon in another spot. It just feels up and down in a unnessessary way.

What does work like gangbusters is the ending: a nutso, exploitation-flick bit of greatness that caps the thing off in a wholly satisfying way. I was grinning like an idiot not only for the ending itself but for the performance of one of the actors delivering the villans monologue. This delivery is just grand – energetic and wide-eyed and completely batshit with a perfectly chosen song for good measure. Awesome.

I wish the whole rest of the film had that level of greatness, but if you can hang with all the setup stuff the ultimate payoff is way worth it.