Entertaining horror effort.
Most folk will know Nicholas Humphries from the many short films he’s made over the past 5-years, which number at almost 30, however, Death Do Us Part is the director’s first full-length feature. The way Humphries has crammed so much action and plot into this 90-minute film, leaves one thinking he may have forgotten he had all the time needed to spread and pace his tale over a sufficient amount of time, with the end result a somewhat overly busy affair. At times the story felt almost convoluted, but it never quite reached the point of silliness where it could never redeem itself.
One of the saving graces of Death Do Us Part was the interesting characters, who each had a their own little side story going on. There were also plenty of red herrings thrown in the mix to help keep us on our toes, making sure we were never quite certain of what was going on. Having several thoroughly unlikable characters was a bit of a gamble by Humphries, but it paid off in the long run, especially once all was revealed. Moreover, having such unpleasant characters made it all the more fun watching them get their asses handed to them.
- Death Do Us Part
- Directed by
Nicholas Humphries - Cast
Julia Benson, Peter Benson, Emilie Ullerup - Release Date
15 April 2014 - Nav’s Grade: C+
Death Do Us Part begins like a gazillion others of this ilk, where a group of friends decide to go stay in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by woods that are just perfect for a serial-killer to creep about and do some serious damage to our unsuspecting bunch of twentysomethings. The only difference here is that this is a stag party for Kennedy (Julia Benson) and Ryan (Peter Benson). The rest of the group consist of Hannah (Christine Chatelain), sister of Kennedy, her best friend Emily (Emilie Ullerup), best man, Chet (Kyle Cassie) and Ryan’s cousin Derek (Benjamin Ayres).
Kennedy has been having an affair with Hannah for some time, and now he wants to call it off, but Hannah is having none of it. Chet is about the most annoying character imaginable, as he continually acts like a dork by trying to scare everyone. Derek doesn’t do much but walk about like a wet weekend, and then we have one of the most cliched characters I’ve seen in a long time, Bo (Dave Collette) the caretaker, who should have been made to wear a T-shirt with “I’m a Serial-Killer” emblazoned on the front. The group start dying off one by one with clues pointing to someone among the group, and with the car no longer working, they must try to survive the night, but they don’t know who to trust anymore.
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While Death Do Us Part certainly had its shortcomings, the acting was particularly good, with each of the actors putting on a convincing performance. I also like Christopher Charles Kempinski’s cinematography, and liked that he kept his shots interesting, even when the action was anything but. I felt Humphries attempted to feed us just too much information with all the red herrings, then having such an obvious character as Dave Collette’s Bo was simply overkill, causing unnecessary confusion. The idea was sound, and with some minor tweaks to the script and better controlled pacing, Death Do Us Part could have been by far a better film. Even so, I enjoyed the experience and it didn’t hurt that all the chicks were hot. This is a film I wouldn’t hesitate recommending to anyone into horror.
Review by Nav Qateel
