Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Zoe Tapper, Ed Speleers, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Jan Bijvoet, Lukas Loughrain, Klaus Hjuler, Danny Thykaer, Robin Gott, Patrik Karlson, Thomas Chaanhing, Per Lofberg, Fredric Ollerstam, Ida Gyllensten, Oliver Dimsdale, Barbara D’Alterio, Ed Hughes.
By reducing the amount of space that an actor has to work with, somehow it can, in the right hands, intensify the mood in which is being portrayed. The wide scope that cinema affords is noble, it adds extra vision to the scene being acted out, however, by focusing the attention of a limited amount of space, on the same allowance of freedom of movement that is afforded in the theatre, suddenly a different kind of aesthetic is felt, one that can bring a greater degree of subtlety and perspective to a film that might have originally been anticipated by the viewer.
The theory doesn’t hold on every film, but when it does, it is one that brings a story to life, and even in a genre that has been saturated, even satirised, to death, it can bring an element of cinematic wonder and belief.
It is in this director’s vision that Death Us Do Part takes a look at the Zombie genre through the narrowest of lenses, a confined space in which to work the film into a place where good story-telling meets overwhelming danger but does not flood the viewer’s sense of proportion with long shots of the rampaging hoard. In essence the film’s narrow point gives a greater sense of definition, that it is not always the mob rule you have to be concerned of, but the enemy within and the merest hint of threat outside your door.
In the budgets allowed for the genre, where there seems to be an over-reliance of flesh-eating drama, it is particular satisfying to see a low budget film get to grips with how domesticity can alter our brain structure and that confinement can cause us to accept the unforgiving. The film wins over the viewer by not allowing itself to fall into the trap of constant attack, but instead on focusing the view to a married couple whose lives have been torn apart by the death of an unborn child and the fall out of Karen’s behaviour at her job.
Zoe Tapper has been an underused actor, regretfully so certainly but in the role of Karen she highlights all that angst, dedication and blistering early anger that was always talked of; and with Ed Speelers and Antonia Campbell-Hughes performing alongside her as her estranged husband and dubious neighbour respectively, this particular film brings out the expected and wanted performance to which she is attuned to play.
A thought-provoking look at the genre, one that plays well against the early George A. Romero’s pioneering film Night Of The Living Dead for its subtext and end result; Death Us Do Part adds a certain depth the genre without being overbearing.
Ian D. Hall