Review: ‘TIL DEATH DO US PART’ could spell franchise for director Timothy Woodward Jr.

TIL DEATH DO US PART

From the creator of Final Destination and Directed by Emmy® Award Winner Timothy Woodward Jr., Til Death Do Us Part portrays the grim reality that not every romance story ends with happily ever after. After running away on her wedding day, a bride-to-be must fight for survival against her former fiancé and his seven deadly groomsmen. In the ultimate horror showdown, the groomsmen soon discover that she has no intention of going back to the life she left behind.


When a bride flees her wedding day, the groomsmen track her down, shall we say, to address the problem she has created for everyone involved. Director Timothy Woodward Jr. gives audiences an action-packed romp in TIL DEATH TO US PART.

Pancho Moler and Neb Chupin deserve your attention. This pairing is a buddy comedy in the making. Orlando Jones has fantastic chemistry with Gigandet. He is effortlessly charming. Cam Gigandet nails the villain role with a deliciously overconfident and definitively slimy aura. The camera loves him. His delivery is chef’s kiss. I would be delighted to watch a spinoff film featuring Jones and Gigandet in a heartbeat. Hell, TIL DEATH DO US PART earns a franchise series. Maybe call it THE GROOMSMEN? *now I feel I’ve earned a producer credit*

Ser’Darius Blain is elegant as The Groom. His presence is genuinely beguiling. Jason Patric elevates the film with his captivating storytelling. It’s a killer turn. Natalie Burn holds her own against this primarily male cast. Quite literally sticking it to the patriarchy, Burn is tailor-made for this genre. 

Markos Keyto’s production design is phenomenal. The fight choreography is entertaining as hell. The soundtrack is a character all its own. Together they are the perfect marriage of camp and kick ass. Shout out to the practical fx team. There is a brilliant moment with a chainsaw. The editing keeps things interesting, forcing you to pay attention to the story as it unfolds. Comparisons to Mr. and Mrs. Smith are inevitable, but this film has an unexpected nuance from writers Chad Law and Shane Dax Taylor. Besides the runtime feeling a little long, TIL DEATH DO US PART is an undeniably fun action-thriller.


TIL DEATH DO US PART

 Releases Exclusively in Theaters Nationwide on August 4

 

Key cities the film is opening in include New York, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Chattanooga, Columbus, Durham, Houston, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Knoxville, Las Vegas, Long Beach, Nashville, Ontario (Canada), Louisville, Miami, Oklahoma City, Portland (OR), San Diego, Tampa, Tucson, Wichita, Westbrook (CT) and many more.

All theaters: https://www.fandango.com/til-death-do-us-part-2023-231971/movie-overview



 Directed by: Emmy® Award Winner Timothy Woodward Jr.

Starring: Cam Gigandet (TwilightNever Backdown), Jason Patric (The Lost Boys, Speed 2: Cruise Control), Natalie Burn (Black Adam, The Enforcer) and Orlando Jones (The Time Machine, Drumline).


Co-written by Chad Law (Black Water) and Shane Dax Taylor (Isolation), Til Death Do Us Part also stars Ser’Darius Blain (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), D.Y. Sao (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Neb Chupin (Mindcage, Acceleration) and Pancho Moler (3 from Hell). The film is produced by Jeffrey Reddick (Final Destination), Woodward Jr./Status Media and Entertainment and Burn/Born To Burn Films. Reddick and Woodward Jr. previously collaborated on the popular horror films The Final Wish &The Call, both starring genre legend Lin Shaye. The film’s Executive Producers include Matthew Helderman and Luke Taylor, with Thomas Mann and Neb Chupin acting as Co-Executive Producers.


 

Review: ‘MK Ultra’ is a Dark Moody Dreamscape  


Mind control. CIA operatives. Clandestine government operations. MK Ultra has it all in this slow-burning thriller written and directed by former intelligence officer Joseph Sorrentino. The film artfully explores a real CIA program that ran illegal human experiments on American citizens on the fringes of 1960s society. Hoping to discover a way to weaken individuals during interrogations, the CIA administered a range of drugs like LSD, hoping to find a way to secure confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. Are these MK Ultra experiences cutting-edge science? Or needless unethical torture? Where is the line? Who gets to make the call? 

 Highly stylized and set in a moody mid-century dreamscape, the filmmakers tell an intriguing story that raises questions of medical ethics, informed consent, and the responsibility of a government to its citizens. Notably, the film weaves fascinating facts about the program into the darkly compelling narrative through a series of voiceover explainers that may have felt choppy or disjointed with a less skilled hand. Here, the background and context of the program within US history are spliced in seamlessly through beautiful cinematography and creative accents that keep the film from coming off as merely a documentary. Impactful performance across the board– and by Jen Richards in particular– raise the stakes to a startling crescendo in its final act.

Cinedigm To Release The Mind-Bending Thriller,
MK ULTRA
In Theaters & On Demand October 7

 Starring Anson Mount, Jaime Ray Newman, Jason Patric, Jen Richards
Alon Aboutboul and David Jensen
Written and Directed by Ex-Intelligence Officer Joseph Sorrentino


Based on the infamous CIA drug experiments from the early 1960s, this psychological thriller follows a brilliant psychiatrist (Anson Mount) who unknowingly becomes entangled with a dangerous government entity fixated on mind control.

Under Project MK Ultra, the CIA ran an illegal human experimentation program intended to develop procedures and identify drugs such as LSD that could be used in interrogations to weaken individuals and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.


Based on a true story about CIA mind-control experiments, see the trailer for ‘MK ULTRA,’ coming to theaters and On Demand October 7th.

MK ULTRA

Based on the infamous CIA drug experiments from the early 1960s, this psychological thriller follows a brilliant psychiatrist (Anson Mount) who unknowingly becomes entangled with a dangerous government entity fixated on mind control.

Under Project MK Ultra, the CIA ran an illegal human experimentation program intended to develop procedures and identify drugs such as LSD that could be used in interrogations to weaken individuals and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.

Starring Anson Mount, Jaime Ray Newman, Jason Patric, Jen Richards
Alon Aboutboul and David Jensen

Written and Directed by Ex-Intelligence Officer Joseph Sorrentino

Cinedigm To Release The Mind-Bending Thriller,
MK ULTRA
In Theaters & On Demand October 7 


Review: Neil Labute’s ‘Dirty Weekend’ Is Less of a Gut Punch Than His Early Films to Its Detriment Yet Is Still Enjoyable

dirty weekend - poster

If you have ever seen Neil LaBute‘s first few films (In the Company of Men, Yours Friends and Neighbors, Nurse Betty and The Shape of Things), you will have learned to expect certain things from him – tons of flashy, quick dialogue, despicable characters and at least one crushing gut punch to set you spinning for hours after the film concludes. He was as fearless as any writer-director in Hollywood during that stretch and his films always had me intrigued. When he moved to more Hollywood-friendly fare in Possession, Lakeview Terrace and needless remakes of Death of a Funeral and The Wicker Man, he lost me. With Dirty Weekend, it seemed a return to form of sorts to the films of his that I love, ones that provoke reaction and thought.

Dirty-Weekend_Press_1 Tribeca

Dirty Weekend is a fairly simple film in its construction. Two work colleagues, Les (Matthew Broderick) and Natalie (Alice Eve), are re-routed to Albuquerque, New Mexico, en route to Dallas for a big presentation that could hold great things for the future of both at their current company if it comes off well. As with most business travelers, they are annoyed at the inconvenience of being stuck in small/big town when they both have so much riding on their work, but Les seems almost frantic as if something else is getting to him. When Les decides the two should split up so he can mysteriously “go into town”, buzzers start going off for Natalie, who decides to join him against his wishes. As they traverse the streets of Albuquerque, they both reveal hidden parts of their lives to one another.

Dirty-Weekend_Press_2 Tribeca

The reveal of these hidden aspects further pushes Les and Natalie jointly into a quest to help Les find someone he has met in Albuquerque before, the source of his jittery nature when he found out they landed there, armed only with a note written on a slip of paper, Zorro. Once there, Les finds who his looking for, or at least he thinks he does, and Natalie surprises with a discovery of her own.

Dirty-Weekend_Press_3 Tribeca

LaBute‘s background in theater is very evident in this film. The dialogue and the sparse locations would lend this story well to a stage. And in typical fashion, LaBute kills it with the dialogue, which never seems overwrought or out of character in the mouths of Les, Natalie and the very few other ancillary characters. Where this film lacks in comparison to his other earlier films of a similar ilk is it is missing that gut punch moment, that moment that forces you to make a judgment on the character (a really good example of this is Jason Patric‘s nausea-inducing takedown of Catherine Keener‘s character in Your Friends and Neighbors). The scenarios befalling both Les and Natalie seem a little too passé for a LaBute film and seem to fall a little too close to Fifty Shades of Grey-land in some respects and just as uninteresting. Where LaBute used to shock us, Dirty Weekend, which has all the promise of shocks, falls short in that respect. And the thing is, he has the perfect vessel in Broderick to deliver something along those lines. Broderick does deliver a fine performance, however, and is very convincing as the not-as-square-as-we-imagine businessman.

dirty weekend

It does well that LaBute allows Alice Eve to flex her acting muscles and not just be used as scenery (JJ Abrams and whoever made that shitty Sex and the City 2 tragedy, I’m talking to you). Her demeanor and delivery are spot on and I found her characterization of Natalie far more intriguing than anyone else in the film.

I think this filmed work at its most basic level – telling a story that piqued my interest. Could it have done it better? My opinion is yes. Perhaps I’m not allowing for LaBute to evolve as a filmmaker, not relying on those squeamish, cringe-inducing moments to carry the film. He could at least given us a Nurse Betty-like elbow drop, though. I enjoyed the performances and as always, the dialogue was spot on. For those who are unschooled in LaBute‘s work, this one may suit you better than veteran viewers.

Dirty Weekend hits theaters this weekend and is being distributed by the good folks at eOne Films.