Rating: B
Dir: Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein
Star: Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Rya Kihlstedt, Richard Harmon
Welcome back, unnecessarily complex but undeniably imaginative Grim Reaper. It’s been a while. But it was certainly worth the wait with a thoroughly crowd-pleasing exercise in death porn. This one begins in the sixties, with a disaster unfolding in a restaurant at the top of a skyscraper. I have been to the one in the Space Needle. I will no longer be going back. Mind you, for an even better sequence in a similar location, check out the climax of The Quake. It uses a piano too, albeit to less comedic effect. Anyway, this turns out to be a recurring dream of Stefani Reyes (Santa Juana), whose grandmother Iris had the premonition, and saved those present from death that day.
Iris’s subsequent realization that death was stalking, not just those people, but any descendants they shouldn’t have had, got her estranged from the family. Stefani tracks her down to learn the truth, and when her own family starts dying in the expected spectacular and messy ways, it’s up to her to find out how to defeat death’s plans. Naturally, it won’t be easy. There will be a lot of carnage before the final credits roll. Yet, surprisingly, we also get one of the most emotional moments in franchise horror, courtesy of the late Tony Todd (top). The actor does not look well at all, but his monologue is perfect, a fitting tribute to a horror icon. I genuinely teared up for a moment.
Enough soppiness. Back to the death porn. My main criticism would be an excessive reliance on CGI rather than practical effects, apparent from the moment Iris meets her maker. However, I am not inclined to carp too much, because the things they are doing are not just lazy replacements like CGI blood-spatter. Instead, it’s stuff you would be very hard pushed to do physically, and I’m okay with that. No question about the peak set-piece. A 2-for-1 special nvolving an MRI machine which goes up to eleven. I’m not sure if the results depicted are genuinely possible – I’ll defer to any medical professionals on that. They certainly exhibit a twisted imagination matching anything in the previous five movies.
I actually liked the characters more than expected as well. While most of the young people in the series are little more than NPC’s crossed with stickmen, Stefani’s cousin, Erik (Harmon), is a genuine pleasure. The movie seems to lean into the black comedy aspects more too, such as with a discussion in a hospital about killing babies, in order to max out the lifespan you’d get. At 110 minutes, it runs significantly longer than any of its predecessors (which averaged 91), and I was worried it would feel padded to that end. I’m pleased to report this is not the case, and I was legitimately engaged from the first moment until the final credits rolled. I’ve a strong feeling the franchise itself has successfully managed to cheat death. More power to it.