Death of Me feat. Darren Lynn Bousman

Hello and welcome back to what's your favorite scary movie? I'm so so so so so excited that we are back from our hiatus for season three of the podcast. Before we get started, I have a very exciting announcement. We don't want anyone to be alone this year, including ourselves. And so we are throwing our very first live event on Friday, October 30th. Join us for the what's your favorite scary movie Halloween party? That's right. Put on a costume, grab some snacks, candy, something to drink, and we are going to chat and have a good time and watch a movie together. It is free for all of our patrons or$5 for anyone else who wishes to attend.

You can find all of the details at www.scarymoviepod.com. Now let's get to the episode. What's on this video is impossible? We watched you snap my neck. You're a dose or something. Give it a strange drink. Special gift for celebrated guests. I was dead. How am I standing here? You would have meant to see what happened. Mommy, she knows. Hello, Sydney. Um, hi. Who is this? It's your killer hosts. My name is Parker, your resident horror fanatic. Today I'm joined by a very special guest, Director Darren Lynn Bowsman. You definitely won't want to miss our conversation, so stay tuned. Welcome to What's your favorite scary movie? What's your favorite scary movie is a horror film podcast where we're on a journey to find our favorite scary movie one at a time.

Whether you hate them or love them, join us and discover yours. Spoilers ahead, so plan your movie screening every weekend before the episode release. It is officially season three of our podcast. I sure as hell never thought that we'd make it this far, but you cannot believe how excited I am to get back to spooky stuff, especially now that it is the spookiest month of the year, October. Now, yes, you may have heard, Caroline and Ian suffered a tragic podcast incident and will not be joining us until they rise from the dead later this month. But today, a very special guest. I will be having director of today's movie Death of Me, Darren Lynn Bausman, on for a chat about the movie.

So you'll definitely want to stay tuned for that. Death of Me was released just last week on Friday. It is currently available on the Apple TV app and on demand for purchase and to rent in the U.S. through Sabon Films and Canada via Mongrel Media. It was directed by Darren Lynn Balseman. How many times can I say his name? Not enough. I'm obsessed. He wrote and directed Saw 2 and directed Saw 3, Saw 4, and Repo the Genetic Opera, both the movie and the stage play. He is also the director of the upcoming movie Spiral from the Book of Saw, which was supposed to come out earlier this year, but has been unfortunately pushed back to next year when we will all be able to hopefully enjoy it in theaters.

He has also created immersive theatrical experiences, which I'm very interested in, including the tension experience and one that you yourself can experience at home called One Day Die, which Darren will give you all the deets on later. Death of Me was co-written by Ari Margolis, James Morley III, and David Tisch. It stars Maggie Q as Christine. If you're one of our patrons, you'll definitely recognize that name from our review of Fantasy Island earlier this year. She has also appeared in the Divergent franchise and the show the TV show Nikita. Death of Me also stars Luke Hemsworth as Neil. He has been in Westworld, which I am absolutely obsessed with. I love Westworld. And Thor Ragnarok. And finally it stars Alex Esso, who seems to have no name in this movie, but that doesn't change how wonderful she is.

She is in Starry Eyes, that movie absolutely kills. And you'll probably remember us discussing how uncanny and incredible she is as Wendy Torrance and Dr. Sleep. Now, I mentioned up top spoilers for this movie ahead, and here they come because I'm giving you a summary of Death of Me. Christine and Neil are vacationing in Thailand as Neil writes a travel article about the island they're on. One night, a waitress serves them a shot with a mysterious oil, later explained to be a Buddhist hallucinogen. They wake up the next morning totally disheveled and out of sorts and discover a video on Neil's phone which shows them having sex and then Neil strangling, then burying Christine. As they inevitably must, things start going horribly wrong.

Misplaced passports and phones, trips to the doctor, and local islanders acting pretty peculiar, intercut with scenes of icky squirmy rituals being performed on Christine, comprise most of the middle of the film. The main thing to note is that the couple cannot get off the island. Neil dies after a man whispers something magical to him and he pulls out his innards. A local tattoo artist repeatedly stabs herself after trying to help Christine, and Christine herself shoots and throws Alex Esso out a car windshield by orchestrating a wreck. Those are the main deaths that all lead up to the reveal of a local ritual where someone must volunteer to give birth and then be sacrificed to maintain the magical protections around the island that keep everyone healthy and storms away.

Only Christine was tricked into choosing this, and after having one eye partially sewn shut, in my favorite effect of the film, it was so gross. She escapes and dies on a raft, leaving the island to be massacred by the storm. Now, the Rotten Tomatoes information for this film, as of October 2nd, when I am recording this, the critics' rating is a four out of ten on average, and there are not yet any audience ratings or critics' consent consensus. If you want to hear my thoughts on this film, my own critics' consensus, you've come to the right place. But first, let's hear my interview with Death of Me's director, Darren Lynn Bowsman. I'm so excited that you're here.

The first thing that I want to do is just get to know you a little bit better and let you speak to the listeners about, you know, what you're all about. So I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what draws you to horror specifically. Obviously, you've made kind of a life around it. So just a little bit about that. Um, so for me, horror is a guttural feeling that we don't feel often. So when we do feel it, it it stays with me. I mean, at least I'm talking on my for me, it stays with me. So, you know, every day I laugh at things like my kids or I deal with drama with my wife.

But to be scared and to be disgusted uh is something that is not something that I'm used to feeling. So I think that when a good horror movie comes around and it can actually hit you and stay with you, uh, that's something that that uh I'm just drawn to. And so for me as a as a watcher of movies, um, orage has always kind of been my genre. Do you have any like like formative experiences from when you first started watching or anything that really set you on to it? Um, you know, when I was growing up as a kid, my dad would always take me to Blockbuster. And my, you know, you're probably too young for the memory of the video stores, but you chose a movie based on the box.

And so, you know, I was always drawn to the sci-fi fantasy and horror because they had the coolest boxes. So um when I was a kid, I mean, I would always I would always kind of gravitate towards those the horror titles, and my dad would always let me watch within reason when I wanted to. So when I was a kid, you know, I watched, you know, gremlins or fright night or any of those, but Elvira was kind of my first foray into horror. So that's how I kind of really started to fall in love with the genre was through those kind of things. And I love anthologies, you know, I love um things like uh Tales from the Crypt, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, you know, uh Twilight Zone.

Those are those I just love. I love just macabre little tales. And you've been involved in a couple of anthologies yourself. Uh, what was it like kind of transitioning from like fan to creator, like and making what you love to see? Um I mean, for me, I just want to do weird movies that I like. Um, you know, like I'm a huge fan of rock operas and musicals, so I've made three musicals. Uh so I've been very lucky in my career that I've been able to kind of just, you know, carve my own path and do what I want to do. So in the case of, you know, my career, you know, I started with the song movies doing those, and that gave me the freedom to go off and make something like a repo of the genetic opera, which uh I never, you know, could make today.

But I think at the time, um I just kind of bulldozed my way into the type of movies that I wanted to see and make, and that was uh that was how it happened. Now, speaking of movies that you wanted to see and make, Death of Me, which we're talking about, um, just basics first. What how did you get involved with Death of Me and what really attracted to you attracted you to want to make it? So for me, Death of Me. So I I'm friends with the two producers, uh names Lee Nelson and David Tisch. And they came to me, and we've been trying to make a movie for a few years. Um, they came to me with this one.

I read it. Um, I loved the concept. There were some changes that we that we all made. Um originally it was kind of set in a Haitian voodoo-based backdrop. Um, we were gonna be filming in Thailand, so we changed the mythology to have something more unique than just the voodoo thing. Um honestly, I saw a lot of ties to some of my favorite movies, Rosemary's Baby, um uh The Wicker Man. Uh, and I, you know, any movie that deals with faith or religion, I like because I find myself questioning my own faith and own religion quite a lot. So anything that gives me a chance to explore that, I I just dive in. And so getting the chance to go to Thailand, getting the chance to work with those producers, it was a it was a quick and easy yes for me.

When you were creating, you said that y'all shifted from you know Haitian story to Thailand. And so when you got to Thailand, what was kind of the process of creating the story and like how much of that was influenced by what actually happened when you actually got to Thailand? So, I mean, a fair amount, a fair amount changed in Thailand for sure. You know, you you get there and you're immersed in the culture and the people and the environments, things change. Um, the movie was a constantly shifting thing from the day that I got the script to when we filmed it. It was really quick though. The turnaround was, you know, something like Spiral, which I I've spent over a year on, um, from prep to shooting to post.

I mean, this movie was three months. Like it was prep was in like, you know, we we prepped it in two weeks, we shot it in three weeks, three and a half weeks, and then we edited it very rapidly. So this is very much a guerrilla style film, not a um not something that, you know, um, and I think that that poses challenges in prose. Uh obviously you wish you had more time, but the good thing about something like this is you're not overproducing something. You you have to just trust your instinct and go with it. But it was also probably the fastest movie I've ever made, which was which was harsh. Uh, but I do think that your your kind of stamp is still really apparent in it that you know, the thread between all of your uh movies.

A few things that I noticed was it seems like, you know, you mentioned repo and the um musicals you've made before. Obviously, this isn't a musical, but there is quite a bit of music in it. And I was wondering, um, like how important to you or what role does music play in kind of your product? The most important role. Um, to me, music is everything. It it dictates the feeling, the tone, the pace, the cadence. Um, I work with music uh quite a lot. So uh Mark Seyridge did the score, who I'm a huge fan of. Mark Seyfords and I did Avattoir together, we did St. Agatha together. I'm a huge, huge fan of his. So um, yeah, it was um it was great.

And I think music to me is is a character in the film just as important as Maggie Q is. Uh, and then also Luke's Luke Hemsworth. I feel like, you know, I'm a huge Westworld fan. Um, and you know, that show is all about this, especially this past season, was all about free will and what's real and what's not. And I felt like a lot of that really tied in with Death of Me. Uh, what kind of are your ideas about free will in this movie? And what were you really trying to like get across with that idea? I think free will is such an important thing in horror films because if if a character is being only pushed to do something and she has no choice, versus having to make the ultimate choice, which is in this case, will she sacrifice herself and save a thousand people?

Um, I think there's something horrific about that because imagine if you were put in that situation that your one death could save one thousand deaths. I think there's something interesting about that. And I think the only way that works is if you freely choose it, because if you're forced into doing it, you only have one path. This has given you multiple paths. Uh, and it's something that I play with a lot in in my not only my movies, but the immersive work that I do is free will is paramount. Yeah, and obviously um, that's a big part of the saw movies, too, is you know, who's really the um the orchestrator, the puppeteer here. How do you think that all of that really plays into like real world, like audience going to see death of me right now?

Like, what are you hoping is like the contextual takeaway of that of the movie? I mean, it's a couple of things. How we look at belief, how we look at faith, how we judge other people's beliefs and faiths. Um, you know, I guess in some respects it it is kind of a metaphor a little bit for uh climate change. And I I someone actually brought this up to me. I don't think I was meaning this necessarily, but um, you know, the sacrifices that we must make if we're gonna stop the impending storm coming towards us. Um but you know, I wanted to make just a creepy film about what happens when you fall between the cracks, when you lose your cell phone, you lose your passport, and you're in this uh, you know, in this hellscape.

I just think that I'm fascinated by those type of things. And I think set against such a beautiful backdrop of Thailand. Uh in Thailand, I was reading uh a different interview with you, and you were talking about how you really like incorporated local people into the story. What was kind of the process of like really immersing the story in Thailand and like getting people to be part of the movie? Um it was, you know, for me, I just like walking around the streets and meeting people and seeing people and and things that look authentic because the problem with movie is it's it's it's smoke and mirrors, it's polish, it's face paints, it's makeups, it's whatever. And I think with with walking around and you find uh like a one of the town elders that's been there for 95 years, you can't fake that, you can't cast, you can't recreate that in casting.

So you just cast that woman. And so, you know, about 25% of the movie was was people that we found on the streets that that lived like that, that lived there, that were part of the community. And I think that it just has such a more realistic feel to it. Did they give you any sort of like insight or advice on like, hey, this is how we would do that, this isn't anything like that? You changed things to make sure you were not either insulting their beliefs or you were trying to be as true to what they actually would do as possible. Um, which, you know, dealing with the movie in Thailand, there there is a very big trans like language barrier and societal barrier, like how I would do things in America is not how you do things in Thailand.

And so I think you you learn a lot. Obviously, I'd be remiss not to ask at least one spiral question. So, what can we expect from spiral that's going to be different from the previous Saw movies? Chris Rock, Sam Jackson, Max Miguel, and Marcel. I the cast is insane, it's next level. Um, it's it's very much more in the volume of seven than it is anything else. It's um it's I think it's it's more suspensible than the last few films. Uh it's a whole different take on the Saw universe. And I think that's what I was very excited that it's something completely new and unique. Um so you know, it's a it's a it's a brand new thing.

Chris Rock came in with an idea, and I think we did something really, really cool with it. Awesome. Yeah, and I kind of got got the idea with the whole you know, name rebrand that you know we're in for a surprise. So I can't wait for that. Uh, what other projects do you have that we can look forward to? So I encourage your listeners to go to onedaydie.com. That's one day die. And it's a crazy immersive at-home horror experience that I'm doing. And all the information's online, but you can sign up and take place in this really crazy horror experience online. That sounds incredible and perfect for all of us bored at home right now. Exactly, exactly.

And then my last question, have to ask it because of the podcast. What's your favorite scary movie? It changes every day, and I'm looking right now to try to answer that question. Um, my go-to are two, it's two. I mean, I love Wicker Man, I love Rosemary's Baby, I think those are great. I really liked it the last uh year or two years ago, Susperia. I really liked The Witch, uh Hereditary. You know, those are those are probably, I would say, those are five, but there you go. It was so fabulous getting to have Darren on the podcast for a quick interview. And if you want to keep up with everything he's up to, you can follow him on Twitter at Darren underscore Balsman B-O-U-S-M-A-N.

You can also look up onedaydie.com for a look at that interactive experience that he was talking about. I'm personally so excited to check that out. Now let's get into my review of Death of Me. As I mentioned in the interview, it is absolutely beautiful. Not just the scenery, which is stunning, Thailand looks incredible, but also the colors are so striking, and even when it's gory and gushy, even that has a certain you all know on the podcast that I love a practical effect, and it has a very visceral tangibility to it. I thought that visually the movie was very stunning. There are these um people who are kind of tormenting and terrorizing Christine with their eyes and mouths sewn shut, and the scene where Christine is pulling at the sew the thread on one of their mouths, and it's kind of gooze gooing out was so disgusting and delicious for a horror fan.

I absolutely loved that. I think that the concept of this movie is really interesting. The idea of, you know, you're with your partner and you see a video of them killing you or you killing them, and that would be absolutely horrifying to see. But as um Neil says to Christine, it's impossible because Christine's standing right there. And that alone is such a mind fuck that really like would be absolutely astounding in the moment. I think that that's fascinating. What gives me a little bit of trouble about that concept is that in the end, that event, which is kind of the poster event of the movie, doesn't particularly connect, for me at least, to the finale and the whole point of the movie.

Yes, this perhaps is when um she becomes pregnant. They have sex on that grass lawn that they're on that he eventually buries her in. Uh, so perhaps that's when, you know, she conceived the baby that it's half his and half the islands. But overall, the actual event and solving what happened to her that night, I don't think I have clear answers on, or even think that that really matters in the end. And that makes the middle a little bit frustrating because we're on this journey of how did she die that night and come back and what happened, and that gets Very lost as they're running around, and you know, eventually Neil goes away. Christine is trying to figure out what's happening.

She doesn't know, and we don't know either. And we don't really have a goal except for get off the island. And that to me made it a little bit tedious getting to where we were in the finale as we actually start to discover things at the end. It also made to it it also caused me to not really be able to connect with the other characters. There's this doctor who you don't know if he's nice or not, and in the end, he's spooky under a mask. There is the waitress Maddie who gave them the shots in the first place, and she runs in and out of the movie. And uh I think the point is that they all think that they're being nice to her.

So of course nobody's being openly hostile towards her, but at the same time, there's just no clues. It's like, all right, she has talked to that sketchy person, now she talked to another one, now she's back at Maddie's place. Oh, and now she's back at the tattoo parlor. And to me, it just was a little bit, I don't even know what to call it, a little bit of a jumble there in the middle as we were figuring out where to go. Because I think the beginning is really interesting, and then I think the end is really interesting when she kind of figures out that Alex Esso's character has no good intentions for her, and the reveal that her daughter is not actually her daughter, but is the daughter of someone they sacrificed to save Alex Esso was really exciting to me.

I thought that was really crazy. Then getting to throw her out of that windshield and seeing her body kind of hung over the glass was really visceral and lila icky. So the movie definitely has its moments. And even like I just said, like it's frustrating that we don't know what we're doing in the middle, but the way that disorientation and confusion and chaos are kind of sown through the bobbing camera and the cutting between, you know, Neil uh filming the parade and Christine being tortured and operated on, I think is really immersive and really put me into this fish out of water. What's happening? How will they ever get out torment? I thought that that was done very well.

And I also loved the ritual at the end, how things are a little too tidily revealed to her. But this conversation that I discussed with Darren about free will and how it was really just an illusion the whole time that the islanders were impressing upon her. You know, she didn't have free will, she couldn't get off that island. We saw what she saw. And I thought that that was really well done. But then connecting back to the beginning, she gets off the island, she dies, there's a big storm, and other people die. Again, I'm not quite sure what the full circle of the sequence of events is, and that to me is a little bit of a disappointment because I always want that payoff and that catharsis and that feeling like I have suffered for a purpose at the end of a movie, and I didn't really get that here.

For those of you that are new to what's your favorite scary movie, every week it is typically not just me talking through a movie, but I usually have a couple of co-hosts. However, we do have a weekly tradition of asking some very fun, spooky wrap-up questions. So let's get down to the nitty gritty of Death of Me. My most memorable murder of Death of Me has to be Neil. When he is cutting into his stomach, you know, it doesn't show it, and I was like, oh, I want to see. As a horror fan, I want to see. And then I spoke too soon because he starts pulling his guts out of him, and I got the chills.

It was so icky. I hated that, it made me really squirm in my seat. So definitely Neil takes the cake for me. I think that a good honorable mention would be that tattoo artist. As I said earlier, just with the jumble of the middle of the film, I felt like I really didn't get to understand or know any of these side characters. But her death where she's stabbing herself, that kind of thing always gets me watching someone slowly inflict pain on themselves, similar to like the Evil Dead remake, really, really and Darren Lynn Balzman really the saw movies, that really uh gets under my skin. On a scary scale of one to five, I would rate Death of Me a solid three.

I think that it is definitely not a movie that someone off the street, new to horror, would stomach very well. I think that there is genuinely a lot of mental distress and emotional distress that the movie puts me through, and that can be harrowing. So yeah, I would say middle of the road, not the scariest thing I've seen by any means, but I think that it really gave me a good run for my money. Now a really tough question for me to decide right now is would I give Death of Me a smash or a Jason Voorhees slash? And unfortunately, as much as I want to love this movie, I think that it is just under the radar a slash for me.

I think the ending just really didn't connect and hit home enough for me to feel like I want to watch it again and again. And that's really especially right now when our what we're able to watch is so limited. But I just think that the blue balls of not having a story really connect at the end and hit home for me is even more intense than usual. And so I just really crave and need movies to make that full circle aha moment for me by the end. And Death of Me, I'm I'm afraid didn't do it. I definitely think it's worth a first watch, it's worth the rent, but um I probably would not purchase this one.

Now, this is the first episode of season three, so to answer the question, what's my favorite scary movie? Well, it's Death of Me. I look forward to what we have coming up on the podcast, see how my favorites evolve, especially when Caroline and Ian are back, or next week when I have Julianne on the podcast to discuss the 2007 Rob Zombie remake of Halloween. Yes, it is time. I'm hanging my cobwebs and skeletons around my apartment. I am ready for some holiday goodness. So definitely tune in next week for us to discuss Halloween. While you're waiting for that, you can head over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and a review. Mar Little Pony writes, can't get enough.

Five stars. I recently found this podcast while looking for episodes about hereditary. Now I'm totally hooked on this show and I'm blasting through all the episodes. I love the hosts and all their different opinions. Check it out. Oh, thank you so much, Mar Little Pony one rad name, love it. Also, yes, go back through our archives. This is season three, we were gone for two months. You could have been listening to all of our old episodes, including Hereditary during them. And if you're a new listener, usually it's not just me, but since I had our very special conversation with Darren, I thought that today I would, you know, cut to the chase and get the good stuff to you guys.

So definitely give a few other l uh episodes a listen that involve my co-hosts Caroline and Ian, who will be back for the last two episodes of this month. Stay tuned for the very spooky, very festive movies that we're covering. And if you want more of what's your favorite scary movie, you'll definitely want to head over to our Patreon, patreon.com slash scary movie pod, where we are posting bonus episodes every month and hot newsletters, and just started our Discord server so that we can all chat and geek out on all things horror over there in the Scary Movie Pod community. Also, big news there's no reason to spend Halloween alone this year because we are hosting the live What's Your Favorite Scary Movie Halloween party?

We are all going to put on our best costumes and tune in to a nice Zoom chat and discussion and party, and we'll pick a movie to all watch together. It's gonna be super fun. The event is free for all patrons, or you can pay five dollars for a ticket. Our party is Friday, October 30th. I can't wait. And if you're considering buying a ticket, our Patreon tier with the bonus episodes is five dollars. So maybe just sign up for a month of that instead. I don't know. Alright, my name is Parker Heron. I am your horror fanatic, and you can find me on Instagram, Twitter, and Letterboxd at Parker Del Rey. You can find what's your favorite scary movie on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Scarymovie Pod.

Again, find us on Patreon at patreon.com slash scarymoviepod for a lot of really fun benefits. And of course, you can send us any feedback or thoughts at Scarymoviepod at gmail.com or on our website www.scarymoviepod.com. Until next time, stay healthy and stay spooky.