Unless
you are a vampire, immortality usually isn’t much fun in movies. Lacey is a case
in point. Initially, she appears to lead a feral, animal-like existence, but
she applies a strict moral code to determine who she will kill and feed off.
Lacey will find plenty of evil-doers who deserve to have their marrow consumed
in Audrey Cummings’ She Never Died,
the companion-sequel to Jason Krawczyk’s He
Never Died, scripted by Krawczyk himself, which screens at this year’s
Blood in the Snow Film Festival.
Blessed
with immortality and Wolverine-like healing powers, “Lacey” subsists on bone
marrow rather than blood. That is why she often removes the fingers of her prey
(you could call it finger-food). Of course, such distinctive corpses are likely
to draw attention, but in this mid-sized post-industrial Midwest burg, only
Charlie Godfrey, a disillusioned but fundamentally decent detective on the
verge of retirement, does any serious police work.
Lacey’s
bodies definitely catch his interest, but he is even more concerned about the
Remender Siblings’ human trafficking and sicko dark web video enterprise. Lacey
has been staking out the Remenders too, so when she crosses paths with Godfrey,
he suggests an unlikely alliance.
She Never Died is brutally
violent, but enormously effective. There is nothing left to the imagination
regarding what goes on inside these warehouse dungeons, so shrinking violets
should consider themselves warned. However, the film has a real sense of
morality and offers up some serious cathartic payback. Weirdly, it also opens a
huge window into the wider mythology of the world in the final minutes, teasing
some cosmic cataclysms to come in potential future films.
Regardless,
Olunike Adeliyi is not mucking about as Lacey. If you want to see a female-led
genre film, She Never Died puts Charlie’s Angels (any of them) to
ignoble, humiliated shame. In fact, Meredith Remender is a much more formidable
villain than her knuckle-headed brother Terrance. Yet, the irony is most of
Lacey’s audience are likely to be red meat-gnawing men.
Adeliyi
is beyond fierce in what should be a breakout, star-making performance. You
have to go back to Kim Ok-vin in The Villainess to see something comparable. She takes no prisoners in her
action scenes, but she still poignantly finds and expresses Lacey’s dignity and
humanity. It is her film, but Peter MacNeill is also terrific as the world-weary
Godfrey.
