By Simon Thompson
Writer and director Dominic Ross’s You’re All Gonna Die is a muddled, tedious slasher movie which in spite of some skilled direction in places cannot overcome its flaws. Because slasher movies are such a tried and true sub-genre which most people, whether they’re into horror or not, understand the basic tenets and conventions of, Ross has given himself a mountain to climb in the sense that it’s hard to keep the audience in a state of suspense if they can tell exactly what is coming next.
The plot of You’re All Gonna Die follows a group of college students who are attempting to exonerate an innocent man, who the public believes to be a serial killer. The students sneak into an abandoned campsite- which of course contains the real killer-who has now trapped them into a deadly game of cat and mouse.
The flaws of You’re All Gonna Die lie in the characterisation, sound design, and plot structure. The main college student characters all walk and talk like caricatures of how people assume Generation Z acts and they have all the natural authenticity of a picture on the front of a UCAS leaflet. Watching them hop along from asinine decision to asinine decision is far more frustrating than it is scary, to the point where you’re largely apathetic about their survival.
The sound design in You’re All Gonna Die is absolutely abysmal. The dialogue is mixed too quietly to the point where it’s drowned out by the movie’s obtrusive and ear-splittingly loud score. The dialogue is also plagued by numerous synching issues to the extent that they are clearly noticeable to the audience. For horror to be effective, the sound design has to be practically flawless to inspire a sense of dread or to misdirect- would classics such as Jaws, The Exorcist, Psycho, Halloween, or Alien have the same effect with weak sound design? Of course not because you wouldn’t have the same mental conditioning in the audience without those iconic audible cues.
Structurally You’re All Gonna Die is a complete mess. Dominic Ross tries to cram far too many characters and plot threads into a 1hr and 28 minutes running time which, as the narrative continues, become harder and harder to keep track of. This is a film which really would benefit from a strict three-act structure, that would have forced Ross to focus on one central concept. Ross does have some skill as a visual stylist, however, with the reveal of a dead body hidden inside a barrel being one of the sole moments of effective horror in the entire runtime.
To conclude, You’re All Gonna Die is a fruitless and disappointing movie, which beside its numerous technical flaws, lacks focus and coherence. It makes for an infuriating viewing experience because there is a nucleus of a good idea in the film’s narrative its just that Dominic Ross can’t seem to find it.
Bloody Flicks 