After She Died will keep you guessing to and beyond the end
The feature debut of Jack Dignan is not as polished as Wan’s comic thriller about a dastardly doll, but it’s scarier and zanier.
After She Died
Vimeo, and on Blu-Ray and DVD
★★★½
Two Australian horror movies came out this month to coincide with Friday the 13th. One is M3GAN, the latest from James Wan, which I reviewed the other week. The other is After She Died, the feature debut of 22-year-old Jack Dignan.
Each film is good in different ways. After She Died, shot on a low budget in Dignan’s home town of Sydney, is not as polished as Wan’s comic thriller about a dastardly doll, but it’s scarier and zanier.
It took Dignan three years to make the movie, which he also wrote. The reasons for the long gestation are simple: too much Covid and not enough money.
Last year, the movie, with a little-known Australian cast, won awards at horror film festivals. It was picked up by American film studio Cranked Up, which specialises in horror, sci-fi and spec-fi.
After She Died now has a global digital release, which is great news for Dignan, cinematographer Rhys William Nicholson and the cast.
In Australia, it’s available via Vimeo. For $9.99 you get the film plus extras such as director’s commentary and deleted scenes. It is also available on Blu-Ray and DVD.
I’ve watched only the 100-minute film. Given what does make it to the screen, especially in the climactic moments, the mind boggles over what was deleted. The movie does not have a classification. When it screened here during a horror film festival it was rated R.
In the pre-title scene, Isabel (Vanessa Madrid) hands her late teen daughter Jen (Liliana Ritchie) a necklace with a gold heart-shaped pendant.
She says the necklace, which she rarely took off before that day, was passed on from her own mother “so I would always have a little piece of her with me”. Now it is time to pass it on to the next generation.
Then the title appears. After She Died. Jen, an only child, is at her mother’s funeral alongside her firefighter father John (Paul Talbot). At home that night, she sees her father weeping as he watches a video of his wedding day.
Soon after, however, he introduces his daughter to his new girlfriend, Florence (also Vanessa Madrid). Aside from the lack of spectacles, she is identical to her mother.
And so the question arises: just how dead is Jen’s mother? Does Jen have a bit more than a pendant-sized piece of her?
When John, Florence and Jen sit down to dinner the tension is palpable. This controlled moment where there may be something wrong lurking beneath the ordinary is a credit to the director and to Madrid, who is compelling throughout.
Afterwards Jen confronts her father. “Is it her? Is it mum?” His reply is indirect: “Nothing can replace your mum.”
The setting is a small town somewhere in Australia. There are posters of missing girls taped to shop windows.
Before Florence turns up, one of Jen’s schoolmates, Louis (Adam Golledge, excellent as the smart but vulnerable larrikin), makes a joke about Frankenstein’s monster. And there are moments where Florence does seem to be impersonating a human being. Jen has visions — of her mother, of the missing girls, of bushfires, of a man in a sheep mask — that may be memories, premonitions or trauma-induced hallucinations.
This movie will keep you guessing to and beyond the end. In another credit to the director and cast, none of the characters is quite who they seem to be and some questions remain unanswered. As Florence’s story unfolds, everything becomes weirder and bloodier. I think James Wan, who was 27 when made his directorial debut almost 20 years ago with the low-budget Saw, would approve.
Shotgun Wedding (MA15+)
Amazon Prime
★★★
The action comedy Shotgun Wedding is silly and funny, a relax-and-watch combination that is almost guaranteed by the presence of Jennifer Coolidge.
Indeed this 100-minute movie could stand in as a double episode of the hit TV series The White Lotus, in which Coolidge steals the show.
It’s set on a resort in The Philippines and is about a group of Americans who have more dollars than sense. They are there for the wedding of Darcy (Jennifer Lopez) and Tom (Josh Duhamel).
Coolidge is Carol, the ebullient mother of the groom. “I’ve been looking forward to this moment since baby Tommy was cut out of my abdomen,’’ she tells the other guests.
Her husband, Larry (Steve Coulter), is silent, perhaps wisely. On the other side of the aisle are Darcy’s serious mother Renata (Sonia Braga), rich father Robert (Cheech Marin of Cheech and Chong fame) and his new girlfriend Harriet (D’Arcy Carden).
The two families are different but everyone supports the marriage. So it’s no shotgun wedding … until the late arrivals turn up.
The first is Sean (Lenny Kravitz), who was once engaged to Darcy. He arrives in a helicopter, dark glasses on, white jacket unbuttoned to his shirtless navel.
“He looks like he’s leading a porn safari,’’ Tom observes.
It’s the second lot of latecomers — a gang of armed pirates — who make shotgun wedding a literal title. They round everybody up, plonk them in the pool, level their guns and demand Robert cough up a $45m ransom. However, two important guests are still on dry land: the bride and groom. This sets up the movie. For the next 85 minutes or so, it’s about them trying to sink the pirates, save their families, friends and the wedding.
There are solid twists — in plot and in character — that make this fightback even harder than it seems. If they survive, make it up the aisle and pledge “Til death do us part”, they will speak from experience.
This movie is directed by Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect in 2012, Sisters in 2015) and written by Mark Hammer. Ryan Reynolds, who was initially cast as Tom but pulled out, is a producer.
The script is witty, the physical comedy fun to watch and the performances are solid, especially from Lopez and Coolidge. If one of the guests is going to go ballistic with a shotgun, it’s a fair bet it will be JLo, JC or both.
There is a serious theme under all the silliness: no couple is perfect. We all do things that other people, even those who love us, find annoying.
The question Tom and Darcy, who fight each other as they fight the pirates, realise they must answer is whether they fix something that is broken or walk away from it.
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