To Your Last Death

• Produced and Directed by Jason Axinn
• August 23, 2019 (FrightFest) / March 17, 2020

Voice Cast

• The Overseer-William Shatner
• Gamemaster-Morena Baccarin
• Cyrus DeKalb-Ray Wise
• Pavel-Bill Moseley
• Miriam DeKalb-Dani Lennon
• Kelsy DeKalb-Florence Hartigan
• Ethan DeKalb-Damien Haas
• Colin DeKalb-Ben Siemon
• Walt, Razor Sharp-Mark Whitten

The only survivor of an attack that killed her siblings is given the chance to re-live those events from the beginning and maybe save them.

I like the idea of animated horror. I think there is the possibility of actually scaring the viewer despite the format. The does not happen here. To Your Last Death fails to use a style that can scare. Ever watch the show Archer? That’s the type of animation you get in this movie making it look like an attempt at comedy. Obviously it is not but the style does this no favors.

I have a fondness for the horror comics of the ‘80s and this feels very much like a horror comic from that time rather than a horror movie. There’s more super technology than there is supernatural. That is mixed in with godlike entities betting and watching the contest making this a bit like The Gamesters of Triskelion without the quatloos but with some voiceover work by Shatner. At the core there is something good with that core helping to often but not always outshine the limitations such as the poor animation.

Super rich industrialist Cyrus DeKalb who is also a war profiteer (they really drive that part home) calls together his children after learning he has an inoperable brain tumor. Why? To kill them. He really hates them. As I’m watching it I am reminded a bit of The Belko Experiment in broad strokes because of the methods of murder making this a weird cross between the TOS episode The Gamesters of Triskelion and The Belko Experiment. There are some complicated kills and the entities watching certainly push the bloodshed rather than familial reunification.

How much is the Gamemaster character pushing the situation? She says she does not create situations but only takes advantage of them. She looks though to be really going hard at making things happen in a way that pleases the entities. The events of the movie are supposed to be part of a contest for the supernatural entities to wager on but if you can keep rebooting or going back then how much of a contest is it really?

And was Miriam (the survivor in the original timeline) set up since before the events of the movie for her part in all this? The Gamemaster made it sound like Miriam’s hacker friend was a complete fiction created by the Gamemaster so that would imply more than just taking advantage. I cannot imagine Cyrus without manipulation on the part of the Gamemaster putting in the expense to imaginatively kill his offspring without a push considering greed and power are his motivations. Their public statements derailed his attempts at higher office yet he waited. If he wanted revenge why wait a few years? Was it to protect his general legacy?

Still not terrible but flawed. I didn’t find it frightening but it was sufficiently gory. The action was good even if it was limited by the animation style. If anything it should’ve done something less in line with Archer. Jonny Quest was more effective and done cheaply. Maybe even skip animation and do it in live action.

I don’t think To Your Last Death is bad, but it could’ve been better. A little less of the super technology and less interference with the game. Entertaining and not a complete waste of your time though.