Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

To Your Last Death Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 24, 2020

To Your Last Death is a curious amalgamation of animation and gruesome Horror with a family ties twist. The film, from Director Jason Axinn, who has a number of obscure shorts and television show credits to his name, builds a dark and twisted tale of a deeply divided, spiteful, vengeful, greedy, and self-centered family fighting amongst itself, with a bit of help from a mysterious outside source, all to extremely bloody result. The film is unafraid of pushing boundaries, showing bodies which have been through a grinder or severed, or with heads slip open, and there's blood everywhere. It's got everything from chainsaw wielding maniacal henchmen to frightened young ladies who take up the mantle of violence out of a desperate want for self preservation. It's dark but not particularly deep, fodder for gore hounds with just enough story and rooting interest in the characters to keep watching until the end.

Miriam DeKalb (voiced by Dani Lennon) has survived a harrowing ordeal but rediscovering normalcy may mean returning to her dark, unimaginable, and very recent and bloody past. After Miriam publicly humiliated her father, Cyrus DeKalb (voiced by Ray Wise), a power-hungry business tycoon and one-time vice presidential candidate, on national television, he gathers Miriam and her three siblings -- Ethan (voiced by Damien C. Haas), Collin (voiced by Benjamin Siemon), and Kelly (voiced by Florence Hartigan) -- together but sentences them all to death, forced to play deadly games for their lives. Miriam, who barely escaped, is visited by the mysterious Gamemaster (voiced by Morena Baccarin) and offered an opportunity for a second chance to relive the event, knowing everything she knows now, returning to the past to right the future. But there are three rules: for the Gamemaster and her companions she must provide amusement. The game can stop at any time. And the Gamemaster can interfere as she pleases. “All outcomes are possible” Miriam is told. She returns to the scene of the pending crime and, against all odds, takes the fight to her father and his goons in a vicious, almost primal, battle for survival.

If the film were live action rather than animated without changing any of its horrifically gory output, it might have achieved legendary status amongst gore aficionados. And it might very well reach that level, anyway. The film is epically bloody and not particularly tasteful, either. It's the animated comic book answer to the Saw franchise, seeing the DeKalb clan forced into horrific "games" that demand bloodshed to survive. Each game is tailored to the victim. Ethan, for example, is flunky who is forced to answer remedial math questions while being mechanically strangulated, the pressure increasing every second he doesn't mark the right answer. But that's the least bloody of the torture devices. Some require self mutilation, others threaten to grind the victim to a pulp. Another child is forced to answer business and economic questions with the threat of losing a limb for each one he misses. It's a twisted vision of family feud that spills perhaps more blood than any other animated film before it. It's grotesque and intense though unbelievable both in its supernatural influences and its picture of a deeply divided (in more ways than one) family structure. But as a super gory escape it holds together well enough, at least until another limb is hacked off somewhere.

The animation is first-rate, favoring a "motion comic" aesthetic. It's a bit jerky but it's attempting to capture that comic experience without sacrificing the static on-page style. Character models are excellent and the gore is well realized, from splayed-open bodies to chopped-open skulls, from gashing wounds to severed heads. The voice work is terrific, too. The legendary William Shatner narrates in something of a Twilight Zone-inspired voiceover. Genre icon Bill Moseley, best know for his work with Rob Zombie in films like House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, voices the film's most notoriously evil character, one of Cyrus' henchmen named Pavel, with all of the over-the-top aplomb he can muster. Ray Wise devours the part of the wealthy, ambitious, amoral, and vengeful Cyrus, the mastermind behind the games meant to painfully end his own children's lives.

To Your Last Death Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

To Your Last Death fares quite well on Blu-ray. The film is colorful with abundant splashes of reds, of course, presenting with high yield tonal intensity to really push the film's blood-soaked style for all it's worth. Additional tones are handled well, including clothes and skin, though it doesn't take long for those to essentially turn red, too. Lines are crisp and details are sharp. The picture is clear and commanding, never missing a beat in terms of offering solidified, fortified, crystal-clear animation that reveals character models, blood-and-guts, and environmental supports, mostly around the DeKalb high-rise, with impressive textural accuracy. The picture does suffer from somer regular banding intrusions, primarily along solid colored surfaces like walls. A few compression artifacts (a wall just beyond the 42 minute mark) spring up as well, but overall the image is quite good in the aggregate.

To Your Last Death Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Don't fret that To Your Last Death features no lossless soundtrack. The Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation is just fine, plenty vigorous and immersive as it is configured. While there may be a mild lack of greater fidelity and seamlessness, this presentation has no problems with saturating the listing area with various sounds of terror -- screaming, revving chainsaws, grinding machinery, squishy gore -- with intensive stage saturation and immersion. Clarity is just fine and balance is terrific. Surrounds are used with regularity and the low end kicks in as needed. Music never misses a beat, either; an organ rendition of Amazing Grace midway through the film is full and filling, the best of several high yield engagements in the film. Atmospherics are not prominent, but there's so much mayhem there's not much room for such luxuries. Dialogue is clear and center focused. It maintains prioritization even in the most intense scenes.

To Your Last Death Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of To Your Last Death contains one supplement, a Trailer (1080p, 1:45). No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release ships with a non-embossed slipcover.

To Your Last Death Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

To Your Last Death will prover too grisly for some, but those who have a stomach for extreme bloodshed and gore will be treated to a twisted tale of family violence and supernatural manipulation. It's decently scripted for a film so focused on the visceral and it earns a few quality voice performances, too. Quiver Films' Blu-ray is featureless beyond a trailer, but the video and audio presentations are fine. Recommended for hardcore blood and guts genre fans.