She Dies Tomorrow (2020)
Directed by Amy Seimetz
Amy is ravaged by the notion that she is going to die tomorrow, which sends her down a dizzying emotional spiral. When her skeptical friend Jane discovers Amy’s feeling of imminent death to be contagious, they both begin bizarre journeys through what might be the last day of their lives.
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Seimetz wisely gives the film a stark tone and borrows elements from “It Follows” to help manifest what our country might be feeling right now.
Suddenly Amy’s insistence that it’s her last day on Earth appears to be catching, a bit like the surreal, sexually transmitted curse of It Follows.
The film also feels like a nod to the psychological thrill of David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 It Follows, as both films rely heavily on the imaginary superhuman power that torments the protagonists.
Indeed, a type of existential dread akin to that of “Mulholland Drive” and “It Follows” lies at the root of “She Dies Tomorrow,” which was set to premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, before the event became a casualty of the contagion.
Not unlike It Follows, which with She Dies Tomorrow would make a bleak and harrowing double feature, this monster is relentless in its destruction.
Seimetz isn't exploring a virus that spreads through physical contact, as in David Robert Mitchell's It Follows, but through psychic contact.
She Dies Tomorrow is a horror film that’s one part Coherence , one part The Beach House , one part The Signal (2007, not 2014) and yet somehow entirely its own.
As with artful horrors akin to Coherence or Resolution, Seimetz’s narrative is a methodical build.
The movie has been co-produced by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, whose own films — “Resolution” (2012), “Spring” (2014), “ The Endless ” (2018) — similarly blur the line between horror and the queasily ordinary.
It’s an evergreen topic for late night, slightly drunk conversations and for filmmakers as diverse as Don McKellar (Last Night), Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko), Edgar Wright (The World’s End) Lars von Trier (Melancholia), Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter) and Lorene Scafaria (Seeking a Friend for the End of the World).
Apocalyptic narratives often project the anxieties of the individual on to the world: I Am Legend’s vampires are really about a man’s dwindling place in a changing society; the ‘Blanks’ of The World’s End are really the deferred consequences of Gary King’s alcoholism.
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Adams ( Happiness , Little Children ) is terrific at the dazed, almost elated way that Jane expresses her belief.