SummaryForget everything you’ve ever seen in a serial killer movie and get ready for the chiller that stunned festival audiences around the world: Notorious murderer Garrick Turrell has escaped from police custody and resumed his killing spree. His former girlfriend Sarah is a recovering alcoholic trying to put her life back together in a new town with ... Read More
Directed By:Adam Wingard
Written By:Simon Barrett
A Horrible Way to Die
Metascore
Mixed or Average
52
User score
Generally Favorable
6.8
My Score
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Metascore
Mixed or Average
20% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
60% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
20% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Aug 18, 2011
80
Viewed simply as a horror movie, A Horrible Way to Die is diverting; viewed as commentary on our willingness to tune out evil for the sake of emotional connection, it's devastating.
Aug 17, 2011
58
The credibility Bowen and Amy Seimetz, as his fearful ex-girlfriend, bring to their roles nearly legitimizes the movie's underlying silliness.
Aug 16, 2011
40
Bowen in particular stands out, impressively describing Garrick's hairpin turns from comforting his victims to instinctively throttling them, but director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett exhibit less facility with the big picture.
Aug 15, 2011
40
Where helmer Adam Wingard's prior "Pop Skull" used a jittery style to convey its delusional, possibly meth-addled protagonist's mindset, here, too much handheld camera wobble and wavering image focus only alienate the viewer from this somewhat sluggish tale.
Aug 15, 2011
38
The adventitious use of loud and strange blasts of music may theoretically make sense to heighten the film's creepiness, but here, like everything else, they don't exactly make a perfect fit and serve more as the final nail in the coffin for the film's lack of tonal cohesion.
User score
Generally Favorable
60% Positive
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
30% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
10% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
Aug 31, 2013
9
What a powerful, if unconventional, horror movie. Amy Seimetz is awesome, as usual. She is so convincing as someone recovering from alcoholism, on the surface level, and from a horrific past relationship, the details of which are buttoned up for most of the film. Joe Swanberg is great and if you haven't seen it yet, check out this crew's next group collaboration that is You're Next. In fact, these two films would make a great double bill some dark night but make sure you see You're Next second.
Dec 7, 2016
5
I enjoyed this to a point as a mumblecore oddity but not much else. The unbearable "indie" camera style annoyed me throughout and the "twist" ending wasn't earned, nor did it make much sense. When were we ever led to believe that Garrick was this influential and notorious? This had at first felt more like a personal film about the aftermath of living with a madman, then suddenly it wasn't.
