Till Death (2021) | Discussion, Recommendations and Spoilers | Film Review

Till Death (2021) is a thriller-horror film directed by S.K. Dale and written by Jason Carvey. The film stars Megan Fox, Eoin Macken, Callan Mulvey, Jack Roth and Aml Ameen. It was released on July 2, 2021 in the United States by Screen Media Films.

At the start of the film, we see Emma (Megan Fox) in a hotel room with a man named Tom (Aml Ameen). Although it is not apparent at first what their relationship is, it becomes clear that Emma and Tom are engaged in an extramarital affair. Emma tells Tom she can no longer see him and leaves the hotel room. When she gets to her car, she drives to her husband Mark's (Eoin Macken) law firm in order to meet him for their anniversary.

After Emma arrives at Mark's office building, she looks very unhappy while riding the elevator up to his office. She does not appear happy or excited to see Mark on their anniversary and appears in turmoil about her marriage and her affair. We follow Emma as she enters Mark's office and sees a police folder with her picture on it. She opens the folder and sees an old police report that tells us that she was once robbed, stabbed and left for dead, and her husband was the lawyer that prosecuted the man who assaulted her.

As she remembers the crime, Mark enters the office and asks what she's doing. Emma tries to hide the picture she was holding and Mark takes it from her, explaining that the criminal who hurt her is up for parole and he was reviewing the case. Emma appears very shaken after remembering the traumatic event and tries to focus on Mark and their anniversary to take her mind off of it.

At dinner, Emma seems mistrustful of Mark and she seems as if she is deciding during dinner whether or not she wants to be with him. After giving Mark tickets to the Super Bowl, Emma tells him she knows he has always wanted to go. Mark is dismissive of her thoughtful gift and presents her with a steel necklace, which he places on her neck. It's obvious she doesn't really like the gift that much and it almost seems more of a collar than a genuine gift. When they leave the restaurant, Emma notices Mark has placed the Super Bowl tickets with the dinner receipt as a gift for their server.

When Emma and Mark get into the car, he presents her with a blindfold and asks her to wear it while he is driving. Emma complies at first, but after a long time, tells Mark she wants to take the blindfold off. Mark comes across as very tense and controlling and tells her to keep it on or she'll ruin the surprise. Emma, frustrated and increasingly fed up with Mark's behavior, rips off the blindfold and is stunned to see Mark is taking her to a lake house they own.

The lake house, although very beautiful, is very isolated and almost ominous in the dark as they travel up the long driveway.

Once inside, Mark asks Emma to count to 100, then come and find him. Emma counts to about 80 and goes to look for Mark. She goes into a dark room for developing pictures and finds Mark has hung up pictures of them when they got married and of other times when they were happy. She looks to the back of the room and sees a record player. When she plays it, it plays a song that makes her smile and she goes in search of Mark. When she finds him, he tells her he wants to reconnect and wants their marriage to be better. Emma, wanting to feel closer to Mark again, kisses Mark and they have sex.

The next morning, Emma wakes up and tells Mark, who is sitting on the side of the bed, that she is freezing. As she is waking up, she realizes she is handcuffed to Mark and asks him what is going on. He says a lot of strange things that don't make sense to Emma and as she is trying to figure out what he's up to, he commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. Emma tries to get free of the handcuffs, but she finds she is unable to and begins to search the house for a tool of some sort to get free.

As Emma is struggling to drag Mark's corpse around the house, she hears someone approach the house in a car. She looks outside to discover Tom has arrived at the house. He tells Emma that Mark left him a message and he came out to the lake house. Emma knows that Mark found out about the affair somehow and has brought Tom out to the lake house to set him up for something nefarious.

As Tom and Emma are talking, they hear another car approach the house and see a truck sitting outside, idling. Tom goes outside the confront whoever is inside and a man gets out of the passenger side, stating that he came out to fix a busted pipe. Tom doesn't believe him, but pays him anyway in order to get him to leave. As he is asking the man to leave, the driver of the truck gets out and approaches the front porch. He gets out a large knife and immediately attacks Tom, stabbing him to death. He and the other man break into the house and it becomes immediately apparent he is out to attack Emma and was promised something from Mark as payment. When we see the man's face, we learn that he is the man who attacked Emma years before and left her for dead.

The rest of the film follows Emma as she evades the two men while trying to get free of Mark's corpse.

If You Like This Film, You May Also Like:

Honeymoon (2014)

Midsommar (2019)

The Shining (1980)

Gerald's Game (2017)

Discussion:

*Discussion contains spoilers

I liked this movie a lot. I was surprised to find that it had some funny parts and it reminded me of how sarcastic Megan Fox was in Jennifer's Body (2009). Don't get me wrong, it's definitely not a funny movie, but I liked that it wasn't completely serious at times and I liked that Emma got across how fed up she was with Mark's controlling, hypocritical behavior throughout their marriage once she was handcuffed to his corpse and had to drag him all through the house and outside the house.

I also really liked how smart and resilient Emma was throughout the movie. She never gave up, no matter how impossible the situation seemed and kept fighting until the end of the film.

I really think Callan Mulvey was a great choice for the main antagonist. He just looks completely evil and I was laughing as I was watching him in this film, thinking about him trying to get the lead for a romantic comedy, telling a casting agent how he could totally play a romantic lead and the casting director looking around the room and back at Callan Mulvey saying, "Um...I think you're going to scare the shit out of everyone, how about a nice serial killer role? You'd be perfect for that." Then Callan Mulvey saying, "But, that's all anyone ever offers me."

Anyway, I really liked how you were never sure if Emma was going to make it out alive because the odds seemed so against her. She does end up making it out alive, as the only survivor of the whole ordeal. I was hoping that the brother (Jack Roth) was going to make it out alive because even though he was a criminal too, he didn't want to hurt Emma or Tom and was distraught at the idea of hurting anyone.

Unfortunately, he didn't survive, so that was kind of disappointing, but not really surprising because from the stories I've read and the films I've seen, the lackey of the super crazy violent antagonist usually dies if they try to defend the victims in any way.

Final Thoughts:

Did you see this film? What did you think of it? Are you going to watch it? Share your thoughts below!

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A