FrightFest review – Everybody Dies By the End

My notes on Everybody Dies By the End

A mock-doc found footage horror in the recent sub-sub-genre (cf: Dashcam, Deadstream) – following a completely obnoxious character as terrible things happen around (but all too often not to) them.  It’s an effective, if mercilessly prolonged character study of a complete git and his enablers – but even allowing for the promise of the title most viewers will see where this is going very early on and only be fitfully engaged on the journey there.  In a prologue, bighead horror auteur Alfred Costella (Vinny Curran) – creator of Battery Acid and Kill Time Now – trashes his own career with a sulky, petulant profane outburst during a live TV interview with a patronising host (Bill Oberst Jr).  Presumably this means that he’s no longer welcome even on Discovery Screen Five late at night at FrightFest opposite the closing film on the Main Screen … but some years later, now bearded, he sets out to make a film called Everybody Dies By the End which is paradoxically going to be his comeback and his last word.  Filmmaker Calvin (writer Ian Tripp, who also co-directed with Ryan Schafer) tags along to shoot a B-roll making-of, drawn into the circle of Costella’s Hawaiian-shirted crew as the director rants and raves and bullies his two (only?) actors Allison (Iliyana Apostova) and Theo (Seton Edgerton) on set.  Costella is the kind of director who isn’t satisfied with an actor’s reaction when splattered with blood and asks for multiple retakes, but is furious with his AD (Caroline Amiguet) when told that redressing the star, set and effect will take several hours every time.  But given where this is going, that’s obviously not the worst thing about him.  There are a few funny minor moments – mostly down to the depiction of the crew just trying to put the madman’s vision onscreen.

Here’s the FrightFest listing.