A film that would make up a perfect companion piece to the excellent Pontypool, She Dies Tomorrow is a film all about an infectious idea that renders people quite unable to go about their day to day business as they used to.
Kate Lyn Sheil plays Amy, a woman who becomes convinced that she is going to die tomorrow. She doesn't seem alarmed by that knowledge. It won't necessarily be a terrible thing, especially if she can put her plan in place to have her remains turned into a leather jacket. As Amy passes her foresight along to Jane (Jane Adams), Jane becomes equally convinced that she will also die tomorrow. As does everyone who becomes a part of this chain of communication.
Written and directed by Amy Seimetz, this is a small and effective drama that constantly darts in and out of the horror genre, and it's a film that explores a few various aspects of humanity in surprisingly effective ways, be it depression that can plunge anyone into a dark abyss, leaving them falling/floating like Alice heading into Wonderland, or the general aversion that most of us have when it comes to discussing our own mortality. It also features moments in which people are having a very real existential crisis, at the very least, while others try to criticise them for it or ask them to stop bringing down the mood of the room.
Sheil and Adams are both very good, spending a lot of the film in a bit of a daze, while everyone else appearing alongside them does work on a par with them, many quickly transforming during scenes that show them talking to a character until they themselves are afflicted with the same knowledge about their own time left on the planet. The supporting cast members worth highlighting are Katie Aselton, Chris Messina, Tunde Adebimpe, Jennifer Kim, and Josh Lucas, although you also have screentime for Adam Wingard, Michelle Rodriguez, and a number of others who are all poised to have their frame of mind radically altered.
This may not maintain any sense of creeping dread that appears in a few main scenes, and it may lack some real chills and scares, but it's an interesting film, thanks mainly to the main idea showing the reactions from various people seemingly forced to face their own mortality. If you go into it knowing what to expect, it's something aiming more for an atmosphere of helplessness and confusion rather than pure horror, then you should be able to appreciate everything that it does well, as opposed to watching it with any preconceptions that lead to you criticising it for what it's not trying to do.
Seimetz is best known for her acting work over the past couple of decades, but she's been doing some solid work behind the camera, in TV and film, for almost as long as she's been in front of the camera. And I hope she continues to make interesting choices like this.
7/10
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