‘All You Need Is Death’ Review – A Scratchy, Albeit Unbroken, Record

All You Need is Death opens rather unassumingly, only alluding to the sinister tunes that fortify the film on the whole. As it prods along, you’ll likely fall off the wagon, hop on again, and repeat. Not everyone is going to be willing to sit this one out, and you won’t be blamed for that, but in the same swoop, there are nodes and notches here that will appeal to horror fans who are hungry for something fresh, regardless of what it is and in exactly what manner it comes. It’s a low-key, impassioned, slightly confusing effort that is as difficult to describe as it is to understand. All you need, really, is to give it a shot yourself.

The film feels indie, bearing an experimental nature on its sleeve and purporting a natural visual palette that furthers the otherworldly tone. All You Need is Death is erratic in many ways; the opening act is paced without consistency, though this is certainly intentional. The story is unconventional and is played up in the beginning through scenes cut according to their importance. Some bits feel brief, and others overlong, but you have all you need to follow along, regardless. Kudos to the screenwriter (and director) Paul Duane for managing an efficient flow of information throughout this process.

The film’s synopsis is as apparently modest as the opening, simply stated: “A young couple who collect rare folk ballads discover the dark side of love when they surreptitiously record and translate an ancient, taboo folk song from the deep, forgotten past.” As a result, the film is able to deliver far past this end, and scores serious points in the surprises and disclosures that abound from the aforementioned solid screenplay. Again, not everyone is going to latch on, but for those who have immersed themselves in the horror genre for a long while and are open to non-normal experiences, there is a lot of potential here.

The movie grapples most with an inability to break the mold, despite the story and structure being patently unusual. Most of the film’s visual content is bleak, in that it looks rather washed out. Scenes and settings tend to run together, and even the scares don’t particularly stand out against the rest of the events. Occasionally, the camera will pull up and mount to the corner of a room (sometimes by way of a security camera) or lose the tripod and supplant a bit of shaky tension, but the general opacity of the visual language hinders a film that heartily needed something new in this regard.

Even the camera’s coverage of an average conversation feels off on a few occasions; this is the type of little thing that goes a long way in grounding a film and its specific aesthetic, and All You Need is Death aches greatly in a lack thereof. It’s not that the film looks especially bad or anything, not by any stretch. Therein is the issue, though, that it simply looks fine. Horror thrives on striking visuals and memorable, singular palettes; when you come up short in that facet, it’s incredibly difficult to deliver on the final product.

All You Need is Death is a “results may vary” endeavor. Undoubtedly, many will appreciate the film’s atypical proclivities and spaced-out scares that serve a more slow-burn stride. If you’ve got the time and want to wait it out, this may be a worthwhile undertaking. Others may prefer to bide their time in preparation for something more akin to what they’re used to in the genre that holds to the pillars of what popularized it in origin. Either way, All You Need is Death likely won’t do enough for anyone to slot it in with their favorites and, unfortunately, seems doomed to tip over into the ever-growing bin of passable, fleet-footed horror that’ll leave your mind when the lights go out.

All You Need Is Death will debut in select theaters and on VOD on April 11, 2024, courtesy of XYZ Films. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30iDkjH6UqA]