All Must Die (2019) | Red Latex and Axe Murderers.

All Must Die is a 2019 slasher film directed by Geir Greni and co-written by Robert Naess. It was produced by Snurr Film AS and distributed in 2022 by Broken Glass Films who were kind enough to give me a critics screaning. AMD stars the acting talents of Viktoria Winge (Gina Moen), Tinashe Williamson(Marte), Julia Schacht(Camila), Marte Sæteren(Stine), and Anders Rydning(Even).

If you've read my previous article I gave you the company line on this film already. Essentially the film follows a bachlorette party that is playing a fun little haunted house game. Follow the clues, watch out for the scare actors, wait, why do you have an axe? You get the idea. Looking at the meta of horror films, European Slashers, while I won't say are becoming more popular are at least becoming a minor trend. "Poland's first slasher" No-one Sleeps In The Woods Tonight came out in 2020 while A Classic Horror Story, is an Italian-language film from 2021 that cribs way to much from Midsommar. A lot of these films tend to be harkening back to the early '80s style of slasher, full of homages and metaness. Which for me have been hit or miss. Part of me sees a similar influence for Greni's film though lets say its a bit more of a vibe then an outright theme here. 

For the most part this film follows a pretty classic slasher formula with a few twists, for instance a flashback scene that foreshadows the third act twist and a Jawbreakers(1999) style girls night kidnapping sequence that was actually really well done. I can't say the facemask trope hasn't been done before but it still got an appopriate creep factor out of me. 

The rest of the set-up is pretty cookie cutter, go out of town, meet the locals, some bachlorette gags, (they buy her a bad dragon dildo), and set up the general location. Its a cabin, its in the woods, the phones don't work, etc. 

If I'm being honest the first third of this film drags a bit, I understand why Greni put in the things she did but it also takes 38 minutes before we get to the horror game sequence. 

Before I talk about that part of the plot I need to mention something and it's the sex stuff. 

Like I said earlier a lot of European slashers take inspirations from early 80s slashers and if I had to choose one to reference for this film it would be Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter(1984). What I'm saying is this film is weirdly horny in places. Theres a few different scenes where we listen to the characters urinate, an entire skinny dipping/lesbian bait scene, and the main charater spends the majority of her run-time wearing a latex body suit and high heels to escape the killer. Now I love a good sleeze as much as the next person but the sexyness in this film felt very hard-core and fetishic in its approach and it muddled the tone for me a bit. 

About 40 minutes in we get to the good stuff, the promised horror hunt and I think Greni handled this transition fairly well, we get that campy Spoopy stuff mixed in with the more horrific elements. It captures on a really juicy tension in horror films which is that denial of belief. That part of the brain that doesn't want to believe its real. Combining that with the horror hunt premise we get a bit of a The Houses That October Built(2014) moment. The biggest issue for me is the size of the cast. Generally in Slashers the length of the death scene is proportional to the amount of characters you kill. To give you an example in NOES 5(1989) the first murder takes over 5 minutes of screen time. In F13th: The Final Chapter you can fit all 14 deaths into a minute of runtime. AMD gives us a few off-screen deaths right up front and literally obliterates half of the main cast. It doesn't ruin the film by any means but it really limits the amount of gore and viscera that Greni can deliver on. 

The rest of the film is played fairly well, nothing completely surprising but it has its moments. Dispite the flaws in the script, there were some genuine scares in this film, and while I didn't love the characters there personailites shown through. I also rather enjoyed the cinematics, some directors tend to play their cinematics too safe and Greni gives us some rather lovely shots especially for how limited her budget is.

Overall, All Must Die is a satisfactory film, its a bit rough around the edges but it manages to hit the sweet spot in popcorn horror. Some fan-service, some blood and guts, and a little bit of psychological horror thrown in. For a nascent director it definetly shows promise. 

Rating: Popcorn Film