A Horrible Way to Die

A very mature, organic, moody, restrained, dark, character driven drama/thriller that took its time going down a tense, sometimes terrifying path. The movie was filmed in a very artistic, independent, simplistic way that connects the viewer with the characters in a personal way that makes the ordeal effective and all too real which makes the sinister acts very disturbing and chilling. The film has a very familiar theme that we've seen before as a serial killer escapes from prison and begins to kill again but to me it hasn't quite been done like this before and makes the thriller different from the norm and ends on a surprising and powerful note. The movie did have suspense in it and some bloody scenes but it's done in a less is more way making it have a classic feel but this movie is smarter than that and relied more on character depth, performances and story than anything else which it mostly succeeded on. Overall if you like your serial killer movies to have a more deeper meaning and not over the top like it was back in the day you might find something to appreciate about A Horrible Way To Die but don't expect a lot of gore, scares and action but more on mood, atmosphere and suspense and even at that it a pretty slow burn of a movie but a decent one at that. 6 out of 10

Billing itself as a realistic portrayal of insanity in the mind of a serial killer, I was left bitterly disappointed.

Expecting something like "Tony : London Serial Killer" what I got was a very disappointing and shallow look at a movie that wants to be more than it is.

There are many problems. One of them being the irritating way that the film has been shot. Being a very shaky cam, at first I liked it and appreciated it for being different and gave it realism, but after a while it began to become a distraction. Deliberate out of focus shots were also contributing to the irritating value that the movie was rapidly growing.

The fact is, you never feel like you are getting into the mind of this killer. You simply feel as though you are following him. Neither investing time in anything he is doing. You know he is a bad guy because he kills people, but any depth to this killer as a person, is non existent.

The acting was fine and there were some genuine decent moments, but the film wants realism, and the biggest killer to the realism is in the ending. I am not going to spoil it, but I thought "no way, this is basic horror movie stuff". I thought that it was a cheap way to end what was a film that was lacking the positives that made films like "Henry" and "Tony" the films that they are in the Serial Killer sub genre.

If you want a good serial killer movie, check out the films I just mentioned. You could probably give this one a miss!

A horrible way to die is nothing more than a horrible way to make a movie. It looks like they just blasted some lights, cranked the shutter speed and did hand-held to make an "artistic" movie. Well, there is nothing "artistic" about this, and this is coming from someone who is a huge fun of unique and original F-U Hollywood film making. I'm a huge fan of Gaspar Noe, and I appreciate directors who "break the rules." These guys do nothing but shaky hand-held the whole time, and man is it annoying! The acting and music is good, but I feel like the camera man has never operated a camera before! It's the same type of shot over, and over, and over. You couldn't beat a dead horse any more than they used out of focus shots to transition scenes, and hand-held shakiness to show hectic moments in the movie.

I could understand if they used some hand-held and shakiness, but maybe for 5 percent of the movie, not 95 percent! Even if your a film student, I don't think you'll like this. It looks like they shot it all in 3 days. The camera work is a far cry from human vision. Human's don't float their eyes aimlessly in a shaky haze. The only point of view shot is the point of view of a really bad camera man! It's like a really depressing and poorly made reality show.

Please don't compare this movie to anything Gaspar Noe has done. Gaspar Noe's camera style isn't shaky vision, it's Gaspar Noe vision, and isn't easy to replicate, as these guys probably found out. Everything Gaspar Noe does is delivered with an original and innovative sense of technical brilliance, which this movie doesn't touch with a mile long pole. Gaspar Noe films make you interested and actually want to watch the rest of the movie, not take your eyes off screen because you have a head ache.

This movie is not much more than a student film with a really nice camera and good actors. The camera work just makes it impossible to actually get into. The script doesn't really go anywhere, and there's not much suspense. The music, color grading, and acting are all decent but unfortunately, they don't know how to set up a tripod or dolly, so you have to torture yourself to see if the acting is good or not. Please invest in a tripod, or Steadicam, or just quit floating around like a film student trying to be artistic! Hand-held film making can be really awesome, but this is a very poor example. The camera-work in Blairwitch Project was better, and they didn't even know how to use a camera! Hold the camera against your head if you have to, the more points of contact the more stable. What a horrible way to make a movie.

A guy has a kidnapped girl in his trunk. He drives out somewhere during winter and chokes her to death. A girl assists an AA meeting. Another of the attendees introduced himself to her and slowly they begin a relationship although she's traumatized and repressed. How these two stories relate we come to find out in flashbacks as this movie progresses.

Turns out that the killer is a convicted serial killer who managed to escape while being transported somewhere. He steals cars and as the manhunt intensifies and his face is plastered all over the news, he threatens people to drive him across state lines.

The couple becomes intimate and she reveals her secret to the guy. She was the serial killer's girlfriend. She called the police on him after she followed him and discovered he had rented a storage unit to keep the bodies. But there is a twist in the relationship between her and the new guy.

A Horrible Way to Die is a good title for a horror movie, except that it doesn't have anything to do with this movie. The idea comes up somewhere when the killer asks his gf how she would like to die. But that's about it. We don't see any horrible killings. There is some after-the-fact gore, but nothing special. It's a small budget movie that doesn't look or sound like it is. Wingard knows how direct and he knows hot to tell a story. And this movie looks very nice and sophisticated. Wingard has to employ a variety of tricks to overcome the main problem- the short script. So we get a lot of different and strange camera techniques that may seem out of place but that give this film its unique tone and atmosphere. We get moving but not shaky camera, out of focus, odd placement of the camera, things in the way. And almost all of it works, except for the distracting Christmas lights that the girl for some reason has everywhere in her house. The story works, even the way it's told, the surprise. The actors all do a good job, in particular Seimetz. And the film transmits the closeness and intimacy of the characters. It's just not enough- not enough horror, not enough violence, not enough gore- after all this movie involves a serial killer.

Other than knowing a brief plot outline of an escaped murderer on the hunt of his ex-girlfriend, I had no idea what I was getting into when going to see Adam Wingard's latest, A Horrible Way To Die. Just so you're aware, as far as plot goes, that is all you have to know before heading off to see this film. As for an overall visceral pleasing experience… well, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As long as the beholder isn't epileptic or easily prone to motion sickness, that is. Both of which I am not, enabling me to absolutely love this film.

Constant shots of close-ups and not just on the actors' faces but knuckles, waists and other body parts (get your mind out of the gutter) as well as random objects around them effectively brought me into the characters' personal space with an intimacy most other mainstream films lack. Never is the camera shaky either, it's more of a purposeful fluidity, like imitating the human eye as it occasionally wanders while in conversation with another person. A good example of a film to compare the camera movement to would be Gaspar Noe's Irreversible. I don't me to drone on and on about one technical aspect of the film, but when something even the most casual moviegoers can not ignore is applied in such a non-gimicky way it's praise can not go unnoticed.

So, now that my praise for the way in which the film was shot has gone on the record I'll briefly dive into other elements of the film, mainly acting, plot and score:

Acting - The two stars of the film, Aj Bowen and Amy Seimetz, both turn in a-list performances. Can't wait to see these two make the leap into Hollywood and gain the larger attention that they both deserve. Plot – Keeping the story simple and absent of any convoluted sub-plots might be too dull for some to sit through… sucks for those people. Personally, I was ready for it to be an hour longer. Score – Nothing too extraordinary here, but it works for what it's trying to accomplish. Overall I'd say A Horrible Way To Die is a great way to spend 85 minutes