By Seth Lukas Hynes
Till Death
Starring Megan Fox, Eoin Mackey and Callan Mulvey
Rated MA15+
The directorial debut of S.K Dale, Till Death is a lean, enthralling and darkly funny thriller.
Emma Webster (Megan Fox) must survive a home invasion after waking up handcuffed to her dead husband Mark (Eoin Mackey).
Till Death is extremely well-paced: the first act steadily establishes Emma and Mark’s rocky relationship through subtle acts of secrecy, manipulation and boundary-pushing from Mark, and the second act keeps us on our toes as Mark’s abusive posthumous plan unfolds and the burglars begin hunting Emma.
The film conveys a clear sense of geography, physical fatigue and important objects, making Emma’s struggle all the more immersive. The friction between the burglar brothers – the fiercely-driven Bobby (Callan Mulvey) and the moral, more reserved Jimmy (Jack Roth) – provides another compelling layer of drama.
While Fox has some wooden moments, she has an engaging tenacious presence. The film derives some morbid amusement from Emma’s situation, as she drags her husband’s literal dead weight through the house, and has some clever symbolism of Emma taking what she needs from her past to survive and discarding the rest.
The only weak link in the film is Bobby. He’s an intimidating, layered antagonist, but his past connection to Emma is underdeveloped and rather redundant (save for a cool bit of call-back in the climax).
Till Death is one of the best-directed thrillers of 2021, and is available for streaming on Netflix.
– Seth Lukas Hynes
