MPX has announced the official US digital release of Rusabh Patel’s I Know Exactly How You Die, an indie horror where deadlines aren’t a writer’s worst fear. Beginning April 7, audiences across the US will be able to rent or own I Know Exactly How You Die on Digital HD, including Prime Video, and Fandango at Home. The film will also be available on DVD.

I’m certainly getting screeners at a diminished rate compared to what I’m used to, but it remains a delight to see a new one pop in, and that was the case tonight when I received an advanced look at I Know Exactly How You Die. With a greatly interesting sounding concept, I plugged into it within an hour of receiving it–even with the embargo date being a couple of weeks away.

I Know Exactly How You Die sees protagonist Rian, fresh off having been dumped and ghosted, checking into a motel so he can face down a deadline and get his recent project written and turned in to his editor.

After deciding to go for a swim in the motel pool, Rian sees that his clothes have been stolen. He is then attacked by a mystery assailant, and when he wakes up, he finds himself face to face with the lead character from his novel!

Rian realizes what he writes will come to pass in his real world, and so he sets about saving the star of his book… who he originally wrote to die at the conclusion.

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ While not ENTIRELY brand new as a cinematic conceit, I Know Exactly How You Die has a very interesting idea at its core. And it plays with it in different way than I had ever seen the notion played with before. So it takes a good idea that has been attempted in the past, and it does new twists and turns with it, which is always admirable!

It’s especially noteworthy that the film does not delve into giving you a reason why any of what you see is happening; it just allows it to be. It’s very much a throwback to an era where not everything needed to be explained. I remember watching The Last Action Hero a few years back and thinking it’s just allowed to be a silly premise with no rationalization behind it. And that’s comforting. We get the same thing here. Something happens. It may or may not be supernatural. Who cares? We got a story to tell. Good times.

+ Rusabh Patel and Stephanie Hogan do a solid job as the leads of the picture and of moving everything forward in as believable a fashion as possible. The acting around them was not always up to their level, but they are in the movie substantially more than anyone else, so they are the two that matter, and they work.

Patel’s Rian is wide-eyed and confused and concerned, but also confident in himself when he needs to be. He is everything you might want in your protagonist, even if he can be a bit grating and obnoxious (intentionally so on the movie’s behalf).

Hogan as Katie is empowered and bold and doesn’t take any shit, but she also has moments of vulnerability built in as a possible victim of the piece. She is a very modern female hero for a work of fiction, and I appreciated Hogan’s portrayal of her.

– I didn’t love the ending, and it’s impossible to say why without getting into spoiler territory. But it felt very unearned, and the final scene goes in a weird direction on which I had big feelings. I think it’s supposed to be a female empowerment thing at the hands of supposed oppressors, but… I’m not sure it really works out that way. It just makes her seem cruel and crazy.

Ugh, I hate when I can’t just spoil things and go into depth on why it bothered me. But this movie lost about half a star for me based on the way it wrapped up.

– There’s a substantial amount of runtime padding to get this effort to even 80-some minutes. The other hotel patron victims seem unnecessary for anything other than letting there be some blood in the picture to seemingly ramp up the intensity and violence. The lady who runs the hotel seems important at times, but she also vanishes for large stretches and doesn’t relevantly play into the ending. Even what feels like a core story about Rian and his ex-girlfriend having broken up isn’t altogether meaningful. It just felt like I Know Exactly How You Die was stretched past its breaking point and had a few script bandages attached to keep it from bursting at the seams. 

OVERALL

I Know Exactly How You Die is actually a fun enough way to spend less than ninety minutes, and I didn’t mind the film for most of its runtime. Unfortunately, the ending did not land for me, and by the time you get there, you really start seeing the strings keeping the plot held together. To be fair, on Letterboxd, I’ve seen other reviewers who were quite appreciative of the resolution, so maybe that fault is on me.