Whilst it’s become something of a cliché, the portrayal of rich and powerful white men as bad parents, not to mention dubious people, still often rings true. Power and money can easily corrupt and that obsession with accumulating as much as possible can lead to neglecting other areas of your life. Especially your family and friends. When the end is near, a father might try and rectify a lifetime of neglect (or worse) before he dies. In To Your Last Death, a wealthy patriarch has another idea entirely.
Cyrus DeKalb (Ray Wise) is a prosperous psychotic arms dealer whose bid to become Vice President was thwarted by his four children. When he’s diagnosed with a terminal illness, he decides to exact revenge on them. As the sole survivor of her father’s bloody vengeance, Miriam’s (Dani Lennon) is visited by The Gamemaster (Morena Baccarin) and given the opportunity to save her siblings. She’s transported back in time with the foreknowledge to even up the odds.
To Your Last Death is a brutal and bloody adult animation which uses the medium to do things that would never be possible in a live action film. The story itself is fairly simplistic but the plot is played out with a lot of glee and imagination. It’s hardly subtle, but then again that’s not the point. There’s a dark and acerbic wit running through Jason Axinn’s film. It might not reinvent the wheel but To Your Last Death is great fun.
To Your Last Death screens today as part of Grimmfest’s May Madness.
