If
the crop of twenty-nothings on display in this laughable horror-thriller is any
indication, then we have no future. Neither do they. As human subjects in a
memory-boosting drug trial, they start having flashforward visions of the
future. Unfortunately, many of them involve the murder of their fellow guinea
pigs. Apparently, a former lab rat is out to end the program permanently in
D.J. Viola’s Tell Me How I Die (trailer here) which releases today on DVD.
Having
just been fired from her bartending gig, Anna agrees to participate in a weekend
drug study. At least she really needs the money. Most of her fellow college
students in the trial are just wastrels who had their allowance cut. There is
also the wise-cracking Scratch, who is there because he digs the Real World-style accommodations provided
by Halloran Pharmaceuticals, whereas Den came because he has a crush on Anna.
Most rational people will assume Den is short for Dennis, but these brain
surgeons act like it is the most exotic name they ever heard.
Obviously,
these kids need to get out more, but instead, they are about to be locked in
with a maniac with more advanced powers of precognition. Pascal already polished
off one of the doctors who developed the formula in the prologue, but his jerky
partner Dr. Jerrems is still administering the test protocols in Halloran’s
remote mountain headquarters, sort of the office building equivalent of the
Overlook Hotel.
Half
the kids get placebos, but Anna makes up for them with the macabre specificity
of her visions. She foresees several characters’ deaths, including the gratingly
obnoxious Marcus, who just can’t die soon enough. Do they die because of Pascal’s
sinister actions or do the visions become a self-fulfilling prophecy? The film
teases us with that question, but it lacks the wits to properly engage with the
underlying metaphysical issues.
The
young and shallow ensemble does not help much either. They have a bit of
attitude, but not nearly enough to warrant the comparisons to Scream and Know What You Did Last Summer Viola is so obviously fishing for. As
Den, Nathan Kress is pretty bland and Virginia Gardner is only slightly less
vanilla as Anna. Ryan “YouTube Star” Higa earns a few laughs as Scratch, even
though his character is a completely unnecessary fifth wheel.
William
Mapother and Mark Rolston are the only ones who seem to understand they are in
a horror movie and play it up accordingly as the heartless Dr. Jerrems and his
arrogant, scenery-chewing boss, Dr. Layton. Sadly, as Pascal, Ethan Peck looks
horribly embarrassed to be in any way associated with this film, which makes
him far less ominously imposing than he could have been.
For
what its worth, Viola and cinematographer David McGrory make it all look pretty
slick. Frustratingly, it is only moderately goofy, so it is impossible to take
seriously, but it is still not crazy enough to enjoy as a guilty pleasure. Weirdly
betwixt and between, Tell Me How You Die is
not recommended, but perversely curious genre might still be tempted to torture
themselves with it, when it releases today on DVD.
