Review of Death of Me (2020) by Amc88 — 03 Oct 2020

I've been a fan of Darren's work for years - St. Agatha is probably my favorite film of his. Like that one, this has a lot of psychological horror to it and a very twisty plot. The setting for this is much more picturesque and I loved that they seemed to use local talent to fill out a number of supporting roles and give the film some authenticity.

SPOILER ALERT! I have to say, I've read some of the reviews that accuse the film of falling back on the "evil native" cliche of films from the 90s and the Hostile movies, but I found the natives to have a true point of view in this film, and were actually the heroes in the end where Maggie turned out to be the villain - not believing and causing the island to get obliterated.

It's this turn that actually made the ending stronger for me than in the Wicker Man where the natives were the villains through and through and burning the cop in the end didn't have any real effect.

These islanders and their families would have all been saved if they succeeded in the sacrifice. I've read a number of reviews and none of the critics seemed to pick up on this mislabeling the natives as the villains -- this may have been the fault of the filmmakers for not being clearer - I don't know.

I've asked my friends to watch it because I need to discuss this with someone rather than just read a bunch of reviews. I feel there's something really smart here that some have seemed to miss. Nevertheless, it got me thinking which is rare for a film these days (happens more with TV).