Every story is designed to convey something. Doesn’t matter if it’s a comedy, drama, mystery, or horror tale, from the surreal to the pointed, stories possess something that they want to pass along to the audience. Some grow richer through deep exploration (The People’s Joker (2022)), whereas puncturing the surface on others only ruins the fun (Joysticks (1983)). The latest project from filmmaker Marcus Dunstan (Unhuman) and screenwriters Josh Sims (PBC) and Jessica Sarah Flaum (PBC), #AFMAD: All My Friends Are Dead, having its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival 2024, offers a bit of both as they rend flesh from bone in a home invasion riff that offers surprising depth when it respects the audience and doesn’t talk down to them.
JoJo Siwa as Colette Campbell in the horror/thriller, #AMFAD: ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD, a Cineverse release. Photo courtesy of Cineverse.
Twenty years after a notorious massacre by the infamous Seven Deadly Sins Killer against a group of music festival goers took place, said festival, Karmapalooza, is set to reestablish itself with an enormous bash. Intent to take part, a group of friends finds themselves sitting out the first night when they run into car trouble and have to make a last-minute Airbnb reservation. What should be a night of revelry turns to terror as they find themselves targeted with nowhere to hide.
There’s a lot going on within #AMFAD, and when the balance is right, it’s an absolutely romp. Dunstan’s put together some of the worst people in existence as fodder for the meat grinder and given them a confined space to work within. Because of the seven deadly sins angle, each member of the group comes to represent a different sin — greed, lust, sloth, pride, envy, gluttony, and wrath. To that end, some viewers might come to expect #AMFAD as Se7en (1995) meets The Rental (2020) with a character vibe of Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022). Truthfully, that’s fairly close of a descriptor if one keeps things in general terms. In this vein, #AMFAD is as much a slasher film as it is a takedown of true crime culture, the capitalist exploitation of trauma, and influencer culture. There’s a shallowness that permeates our culture, some born out of a need to get into a different station in life without debt and some out of a moral failing, that only feeds itself after a fashion. It used to be that being an expert in something was valued, but that sense of worth has been devalued by a persistence that the average person knows better than someone who’s spent time on their craft. Scientists are to be ignored in favor of your local trad wife TikToker, academics are to be ignored in favor of the loudest voice shouting at a school board meeting, and art critics are to be ignored in favor of the latest influencer who only mocks the art and artists they purportedly are hired to get close to. The devaluing of expertise leads to a rise in the presumption that reality is only what you think it is, therefore reality is what you make it, so who gives a damn what you do or say to someone else. Just as corporate businesses will put consumers in the ground before they would admit that their practices are the ones at fault for high prices and low-quality products, why should the regular person with access to social media care what an expert thinks as long as they have enough followers? Throw in a little trauma dumping or exploitation of the aggrieved, dead, or surviving, and you’ve got yourself the foundation for a career.
Not to mention that, as a slasher, there’s some beautifully designed kills going on. They are constructed to make obvious statements about each respective victim. Those looking for gnarly kills are going to find them, and the mix of practical and computer-enhanced effects does deliver the goods. When there’s harmony between methodology and meaning, the kills effectively mince the concept and the person; however, there’re a few too many moments in which digital effects are added that are less smoothly blended, thereby ruining the otherwise realistic setup and execution.
One can forgive a few moments wherein digital blood splatter or even Sanjuro-esque (1962) amounts come spewing out from unlikely anatomically-based sources, but what’s harder to let go of is the excessive world-building that makes up the bulk of the opening of the film. Using a structure that smartly sets up the visual style of the film and offers exposition, the audience is given not one, but two different concept intros before our central cast is introduced and the title is given. Now, you delay a title reveal just right and you get RRR (2022) or Hundreds of Beavers (2022) levels of hype, but, within #AMFAD, there’s a sense of “why did it take so long?.” It’s a feeling that’s amplified by the fact that these efforts to world-build at the front of the film, instead of doing so over the course, heavily foreshadows what’s to come. As a commentary on how quickly society moves on from tragedy or how the worst parts of influencer culture more often than not are less thoughtful regarding trauma, the world-building helps the audience to cheer on the killer (itself a bit of meta commentary about the audience getting their jollies this way), but because we *know* what the film is doing, we’re consistently ahead of the characters in ways we should not — an aspect that becomes detrimental in connecting with the film in a meaningful way as we’re just waiting to be right rather than taking in the events as they happen.
Jade Pettyjohn as Sarah in the horror/thriller, #AMFAD: ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD, a Cineverse release. Photo courtesy of Cineverse.
There is as much space in horror for lo-fi sci-fi stoner comedies like Hanky Panky (2024) as there is for brutal-yet-meditative slashers like In a Violent Nature (2024), so don’t mistake the above as a total slight against the film. Just because one can figure out what’s going on early doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the ride. Speaking of, make sure to stick around for the credits because the world-building really starts to pay off in the mid-credits sequence with the strong inference that there’s more to come. Will it be as chilling as the credits of The Rental and have you rethinking your Airbnb experience? Probably not. But there’s definitively a feeling of “game on” that lends one to consider dipping back into the world Dunstan’s created.
World premiere during Tribeca Film Festival 2024.
In select theaters, on VOD, and digital August 2nd, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Tribeca 2024 #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead webpage.
Final Score: 3 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews, streaming
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