Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Alexandra Spieth
Starring: Rushabh Patel, Stephanie Hogan, Katie Wieland, Daniel Boyd, Rawya El Chab, Summer Hernandez
The slasher is a genre which is exclusively cinematic, in the sense that it is difficult to conceptualise a successful iteration of the expressive mode within any other medium. Visually dynamic and predicated upon their paced invention of suspense, slashers are cinema ready. As with Kaiju movies and their qualities of spectacle, it is hard to imaginatively reconfigure Friday the 13th as a radio play or a King Ghidorah novel. Nonetheless, Godzilla et al. comics endure due to the striking visual properties of the monsters while attempts to similarly translate the slasher to sequential art have been limited (a notable exception is Tim Seeley's 'Hack/Slash', which amped up the comedy elements and hyperbolic iconography of the post-modern genre), most likely due to the visual rhythms of the horror sub-genre's arrangements, the imperilled promises of its escalating set pieces. It's interesting then, that the roots of the slasher are to be located within literature, specifically the mounting body counts and who-dunnit mechanics of Agatha Christie: plot structures which supreme visualist Bava transposed to bloody manifestation in Twitch of the Death Nerve to become aspects that the mainstream American slasher has retained since (my little jaw dropping at the Mrs Vorhees reveal/will-Sydney-be-the-killer-this-time eternal fan discourse etc). It doesn't work both ways, though. I never slag off specific books, but every so often I'll pick up a slasher-genre novel from the library/ cheap on kindle with the best of intentions and be met with disappointment at how clumsily the mode renders into words. In fact, reading a slasher is almost an exegesis of the genre, as it highlights the operatic absurdity of the form: for one thing, slashers should exist within a cinematic physical rush, where you are giddily swept over plot holes and narrative implausibility; a procedure which the active protraction of reading is in opposition to (a thesis explored by Stephen Graham Jones' exceptional slasher series, which are as much about the genre as presenting its thrills).
I felt like telling this to Rian (Rushabh Patel), protagonist of Alexandra Spieth (director) and Mike Corey's (writer) cute slasher/comedy I Know Exactly How You Die (the title is reminiscent I Know What You Did Last Summer, a franchise based on the YA suspense novel by Lois Duncan: the author disowned the movie for its slasher distortion of her psychologically based narrative...). The advice could have saved him a lot of silly bother as he attempts to complete his slasher novel, reconcile his failed relationship and deal with the creeping suspicion that his written draft is coming to life around him... The guy is on to a loser from the start as, following an interestingly gender flipped in media res murder, we see him pester his ex-girlfriend with repeated answer phone messages as he drives though the wooded highways - there are mentions of Ed Sheeran and Limp Bizkit concerts: ok unc - and as the messages remain unanswered Rian's anger begins to show.
Presenting our lead as an aggressive incel-type is an intriguing choice, but it contrasts wildly with how the film proceeds to cast Rian: played with charming goofiness by Patel, he's apparently a sweet doofus. This confused characterisation is typical of I Know Exactly How You Die's narrative and thematic dispersion: this is a film with a lot of ideas, some of which are not satisfactorily explored.
Rian has a deadline to complete his slasher novel within a week, a task which he seemingly has barely started (another aspect I lost sympathy for him over - mate, you're unprofessional). Within the motel wherein he holes up to finalise the draft there are a picaresque cast of characters which attempt to add colour to the proceedings: a couple in the next room have sex, an angry lesbian accuses Rian of following her. It's all he can do to sit on his bed, laptop on his knees, and write about his final girl: Katie (Stephanie Hogan), who is a drug counsellor fleeing a violent stalker. As he writes, the visual set becomes Rian's story, and we transition between the imagined diegesis of the book and Rian knocking about the motel in pleasingly blurred plotlines. Until Katie, perhaps a tulpa conjured by Rian's emotional state or maybe something to do with the spectral qualities of the motel itself, appears IRL.
The situation is further complicated by the event of Rian bumping his head and coming around to see his character looming over him. Is this all happening in Rian's mind? Well, yes, because it's his book, but is he consciously creating this narrative, is he dreaming it, or is it actually happening? The film seems initially to play with all three approaches, although the genre necessity that we are given more narrative information than the protagonists soon consolidates a decisive angle. Nonetheless, the principle that Rian is still authoring a version of reality, by typing on his little laptop, persists. I am not sure if the logic of what is supposed to be happening convinces, a hesitation compounded by the tonal approach: the goofy comedy of Rian and Katie's meet-cute interactions and developing relationship is brutally juxtaposed by imaginative and unpleasant violence and gore in the third act (the stalker sends Katie hearts studded with the teeth of victims, for gruey example).
A late twist suggests that Rian was never truly the author of his own fate, but this in itself is a narrative turn which depends upon us accepting a character behaving in a manner which simply doesn't correspond with the prior arc. I enjoyed I Know Exactly How You Die for its pluckiness and likeability, but this literary based horror could have done with another couple of drafts.
I Know Exactly How You Die received its World Premiere at Dances With Films NYC on January 17th.
