EVERY TIME I DIE: An Innovative Supernatural Thriller

Through the summer blockbuster haze, surfaces a supernatural thriller that may very well be the most rewarding low-budget thriller of the year. Every Time I Die is concocted by the mind of Robi Michael, who develops his feature debut with a palpable aura of mystery and tragedy. For the sake of fulfilling Michael’s hypnotic vision, woozy camera effects are employed to ensure the thriller doesn’t conform to a linear narrative structure.

Initially, Every Time I Die is a tale of a young man named Sam (Drew Fonteiro), who is murdered, and whose consciousness travels through the bodies of his friends to protect them from his murderer. Against the plot similarities of other projects like 1998’s Fallen, this mind-bending venture is handled in a wonderfully artful and surprisingly moving fashion.

Director Robi Michael is able to plant the seed of intrigue early on in the movie. The film opens to a visual of a tiny circle of light, with the glimmer of a star, but what surrounds this faint light source is pure darkness. The light source gradually fades away, prompting a POV shot of an unknown physical source, as he/she is just waking up from a deep sleep. Still following his/her perspective, once they look at their reflection on a reflective table, a young boy is seen, and his name is Sam. Instantly, the confusion of what’s reality, a forlorn flashback or a foggy hallucination, is immediately appended into the deliberately fractured narrative structure (taking inspiration from Christopher Nolan’s Memento).

It’s the next scene that possibly takes us to Sam’s reality, who’s now older and who’s seen waking up from a deep sleep next to a woman named Mia (Melissa Macedo). Still positioned in an echt POV shot, this helps delineate Sam’s weariness after waking up from a dream of when he was younger, potentially alluding to a traumatic event. But Sam’s lost grasp on reality doesn’t only befall when he’s asleep. Before his daily shower, Sam looks at himself in the mirror, more dazed and confused than ever. As it turns out, Sam does suffer from blackouts, steered by childhood trauma: when he was 8-years-old, his sister, who he swore to protect, failed to save her, so he blames himself.

Today, Sam’s a paramedic who spends his day with Jay (Marc Menchaca), his insouciant friend/co-worker who’s taking medication after a past suicide attempt. Having been familiar with the feelings of agony and self-hatred, Jay senses something is eating up Sam from the inside; woefully, Sam doesn’t open up. Jay and his wife, Poppy (Michelle Macedo), are planning a weekend at a lake house, and they insist Sam come along. Despite being lovers, Mia isn’t exuding the same joy, and that’s fueled by the fact Mia is married, and her husband, Tyler (Tyler Dash White), is back from overseas after serving in the military. Sam decides to go anyway, and what ensues is a direful vacation, infused with secrets, realizations, confrontations and the murder of Sam. When Sam dies, his consciousness lives and seeks refuge in the bodies of his friends in an attempt to protect them from his killer.

Thematically And Narratively Ambitious

There’s always a part of you, as a viewer, that questions most things unfolding on-screen. The configuration of Every Time I Die is quite peculiar and evocative, with the distorted visual aesthetic overwhelming the dialogue — but there’s also no need for too much dialogue. The concept, alone, is daring — so daring, in fact, what Michael accomplishes with such a tight budget, is nothing less than impressive. Michael constructs a climate of trepidation that’s upheld by surreal imagery (which is a victim of a limited budget, but it’s functional, if slightly exhausting) and a riveting score. The usage of visuals — from the tempting POV shots and the gossamer camera effects— helps perpetuate Sam’s crippling self-image.

For the first half or so, Drew Fonteiro is the frontman, showing us an emotionally frustrated individual undergoing PTSD. In a performance low on words and huge on physicality, Fonteiro’s able to radiate the effects of trauma through habile face acting and fidgety body language. The self-condemnation is vividly portrayed. Muzzy flashbacks take Sam (and us) back to the past, where a younger Sam is dealing with the aftermath of his sister’s death. His family is drifting apart, and Sam is withstanding weighty questions from a child psychologist. These fleeting clips are scattered throughout, effectively utilizing the sister’s death as a consistent emotional device that holds significant gravity. With a narrative that’s dangling the past and the present, Sam is mired in incidents from his past, therefore plaguing his present. Sam is having blackouts and is constantly probing his reality because of his implacable subconscious.

By the time Sam agrees to join Jay, Mia and Poppy at the lake house, the film has been plodding along without prompting Sam’s demise for quite some time. But you could look at the slow pace either way: on one hand, the gradual build-up to Sam’s death helps you understand the sheer tragedy of his past, and the sheer depravity of his actions every time he sleeps with Mia; on another hand, the supernatural aspect is not wholly embraced.

The death of Sam is nerve-wracking and is orchestrated by none other than Tyler, Mia’s husband. Tyler Dash White channels the clichéd role of a military man with a corrupted psyche, with a tactile rage and a woven unpredictability. So when Sam dies, his consciousness finds another host. When that host dies, his consciousness finds another host…until Sam can bring Tyler’s harebrained fury to a halt. Sam finds himself hop-scotching to anyone who’s nearby. Even if a different actor is attempting to emulate the character, Sam is always convincingly possessing the character from within. Melissa and Michelle Macedo are indeed sisters, and they’re mostly here to call out when Sam, Jay or one of their characters starts acting strange and off-character.

Although the supernatural element is enticing, Every Time I Die is and always will be a tale surrounding Sam’s identity before being branded a simple revenge thriller. When it comes to the tinkering of PTSD, the act of failure and self-realization, the screenplay by Gal Katzir and Michael isn’t low on ingenuity. We see everything from Sam’s perspective, and his perspective is worth investing in because the evaluation and display of his guilt-riddled psyche is engrossing.

“I never actually wanted to die.”

During a tense conversation between Sam and Jay, the quote above is what Sam carelessly blurts out, knowing Jay, at one point, wanted to kill himself, and Sam proclaims he never entertains the idea despite his problems. In a movie with a lot of sad-looking characters, Marc Menchaca’s portrayal of Jay is full of life. Despite the character’s setbacks, Jay is now determined to self-actualize and help Sam through his problems. Sam never wanted to die, but he does eventually die — and his death leads to a more hopeful journey of his blurred identity. Sam’s hotheaded attempts to warn his friends of Tyler is flawed from the get-go. In the beginning, Sam reacts out of ire and fear, and he doesn’t effectuate a more heedful plan until situated in the last body.

After marital secrets are revealed, vengeance gets Sam killed. No, he didn’t deserve to die, and he didn’t deserve to die the way he did, but people die every day without deserving it. Strangely, Sam died and learned more about himself. Sam is still the young kid who failed to save his sister, he’s still the foolish man who slept with Tyler’s wife because he loved her, and he’s still a human being who’s ingrained with faults and who slowly acknowledges how things happen that are out of his control. Then again, we witness everything from Sam’s perspective.

Expecting a deep-dyed answer to why and how Sam’s consciousness is alive and well after his death is not going to be exhaustively expounded. I would be worried if it was because we only know as much as Sam, and we could only predict why everything is happening the way it is. Knowing the unearthly nature of Sam’s encounter after death, and how he’s able to possess the bodies of his friends, Sam has to recognize how some things are out of his control, and some things are actually in his control, to an extent.

The body-searching ability is visibly out of his control, but he has management over how he goes about to take down his killer. What happened to his sister is disheartening and emotionally scarring, but he could’ve never known that was going to happen, or that he could have done anything else to save her once she fell into the lake. The grating verity of being human is that after a tragic incident, we look at things or ways we could have done differently. Luckily, Sam has many attempts to take down his killer.

For Tyler, wielding a gun and emitting that kind of power, is the only time Tyler feels like himself. Like Sam, Tyler inherits a guilt-infused psyche, but he’s more reckless and inclined to erupt in violence because it’s the solution he’s deeply familiar with. Every Time I Die knows how to sketch the characters and exploit their faults, but do so in a sincere manner. Since the runtime is short, the ending is rushed, but the journey is still worth taking.

Every Time I Die Is A Bold Small-Budget Thriller

The wantonly slow pace can be irksome for viewers expecting a violent thriller, where a man has to die again and again while trying to take down his murderer. Director Robi Michael doesn’t rely on lazy antics and is cultivating a supernatural thriller that stays grounded in our realm. Living up to its eccentricity and lyrical presence, Every Time I Die extensively utilizes its woodland setting, small cast, piercing score and shadowy effects to breathe life in a thriller, brimming with genuine despair.

Although the ending is hurried and budgetary restrictions don’t always maintain convincing visuals (this is seen more clearly when Sam’s consciousness is finding a new body), Every Time I Die is a bold indie with strong resonance. Every Time I Die could have easily been overpowered by superfluous gore or supernatural hokum but instead, it’s a captivating little tale about self-image, with a mystical and poignant touch.

What is your favorite supernatural thriller? Let us know in the comments!

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