DIE BEFORE YOU DIE

(director/writer: Dan Pringle; screenwriter: Ziad Abaza; cinematographer: Ben Saffer; music: Nina Humphreys; cast: Ziad Abaza (Adi), Mim Shaikh (Maz), Layla Hady (Mia), Priya Blackburn (Amira), Harry Reid (Lee), Falah Hashim (Al-Fayez), Ghazwan F (Walid), Laurent C. Lucas (Ibrahim); Runtime: 104; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Adam J. Merrifield; White Lantern Film; 2024-UK)

“Glorified rubbish.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Brit director-writer Dan Pringle (“K-Shop”) and co-writer Ziad Abaza present an unusual horror pic, with a great title but with a baffling premise and an ugly conclusion.
 
Adi (Ziad Abaza) is married to Amira (Priya Blackburn) and they have a young daughter Mia (Layla Hady). He’s an irritating You Tuber personality, known for videos on strength and endurance. He spends more time as a vlogger than with his family.

In Dorset, along with his enabler friend Maz (Mim Shaikh), they meet in a hookah bar their big social media fan Lee (Harry Reid), who lures his idols into taking a risky challenge. The influencers agree to get buried with an airpipe and a little water six-feet under in a field and stay there for three days. Mia talks dad into getting buried with the monkey figurine Oge. They are buried by Lee’s friends, a mystical sect of Sufis, who will return after three days to dig them out. The idea behind this social media stunt is to get more hits for their site, outdo their rivals in performing stunts and explore matters of faith, death and rebirth.

Things take a bad turn when Adi hallucinates that the monkey figurine is conversing with him.

It’s hard to watch such glorified rubbish without scratching my head, as the film skewers those who get taken in by social media personalities and have lost the way.

REVIEWED ON 10/28/2024  GRADE: C
dennisschwartzreviews.com