She Dies Tomorrow (2020)

Director: Amy Seimetz

This isn’t a horror film, though it is marketed as one. The camera is often still as figures move towards us, faces blurred by lights or shadows, and this does create a sense of dread. Much more of the film is observing Amy as she says goodbye to the world, stroking the wooden floor of her new house, and pressing her cheek against its walls. The story jumps through time, allowing us to piece together the events that have led to Amy’s last day. It’s a tactile, sensual film, slow and beautifully acted, but it does invoke anxiety.

It opens with Amy telling her friend Jane that she knows she is going to die the following day. Jane is a fast-talking, anxious person, and is only half-listening to Amy’s words, but they slowly sink in, and when they do Jane begins to believe that she is also going to die the next day. The film becomes a succession of conversations, the idea spreading from person to person, with coloured lights flashing that only they can see, so we don’t know if it is an alien invasion, a virus, a mass delusion, or something else.

It’s affecting, but also mordantly funny in places. Different people react in different ways to their fast approaching death, some doing terrible things, others simply telling each other the truth. The idea of the film lingered in my mind. We’re all going to die. Perhaps even tomorrow.