In Death of Me, we’re introduced to Christine (Maggie Q, Nikita, Designated Survivor) and Neil (Luke Hemsworth, Neighbours, Westworld), a married couple on vacation on an island off Thailand. Neil is a travel journalist, so the happy couple planned on spending a few days on the island before returning to Thailand and continuing his reporting. The only problem is that they wake up one morning hungover, muddy, and with no memory of the night before. Christine’s even wearing a strange talisman around her neck and Neil’s got some blood under his fingernails.

Uh oh.

Before the movie turns into the horror version of The Hangover, Christine and Neil decide to get cleaned up and catch the ferry, fuzzy memories be damned. They’re especially eager to leave because of news reports of an approaching typhoon, even though the locales brag that the last typhoon hit over two hundred years ago (being bad weatherproof is even in their brochures). Turns out Christine and Neil’s passports went missing when they blacked out, so their luggage heads to the mainland but they’re trapped until the next ferry.

With nothing to do but wait, Neil decides to go through his camera for some clues about what happened the night before and the couple discovers a video of them getting plastered at a bar off the beaten track, and then Neil snapping Christine’s neck and burying her corpse.

Yeah, that’s a sudden turn The Hangover never took.

All of that’s just the first fifteen minutes or so, which propels the movie into a sinister mystery of “what the hell is going on?” To make matters even worse, we learn Christine and Neil drank a powerful hallucinogen, so we don’t know if we can even believe what they’re seeing. Are there weird kids watching her with duct tape over their eyes and mouths? Is there even a typhoon coming? Is Christine being gaslighted? to make matters worse for the viewer, the locals are never subtitled, so you’re always in Christine’s confused and frustrated shoes. Death of Me put me on a balancing beam and I don’t know which way to tilt.

The script is by David Tish, Ari Margolis, and James Morley III, who are all mostly producers and have worked on crew for movies and documentaries. It’s a fantastic script. How many horror movies have you seen in which the leads do something stupid? This doesn’t happen here. Part of the reason I felt like I was on this journey with Christine and Neil was because they made the same choices I would for the most part.

Both leads turn in strong performances, and I especially appreciate Maggie Q’s power to emote Christine’s feelings when she’s not delivering dialogue. Throughout that first act, Christine knows something is wrong. She has that gut instinct that something bad happened. That they’re in danger. That they just need to get out. But without any real evidence and with Neil trying to stay optimistic, it’s almost entirely written on her face, and I felt it with her. If the Oscars considered more than one horror movie every twenty years, I’d say nominate Maggie Q.

I appreciate that Neil isn’t just a side character, he’s on this journey with her, telling her, “I’m just trying to do the right thing, but I don’t know what that is.”

As creepy and insidious as the movie feels, it’s also absolutely gorgeous. Filmed in Thailand, director Darren Lynn Bousman takes full advantage of the beautiful land and ocean. If you’re familiar with Bousman’s work (Saw II, III, IV, Repo! the Genetic Opera, Abattoir) you know how his aesthetic tends to be urban grit. Death of Me couldn’t look further away from his other work. It’s great to see a filmmaker come out strong with a completely different aesthetic than fans are used to. And don’t worry, Bousman gore fans, because there’s some gory effects in this. There’s one extreme segment that even I thought went on a few seconds longer than necessary.

The more the movie veered into creepy locals and symbols, I was worried they’d head into a xenophobic territory, but they’re sure to tell us that whatever’s going on to Christine and Neil has absolutely nothing to do with Thai culture or Buddhism. There’s even a festival happening with locals in masks and Neil is surprised because he knows the date has no correlation to any customs he’s heard of.

It’s a little difficult talking about this without giving away what’s going on, or comparing it to a couple other horror movies with similar premises. Just stating those titles would be a huge spoiler, so I would recommend going into this without reading too much about it. I’m sure other reviewers will throw those titles out there, which is a shame.

Troy’s Takeaway: If you’ve ever been in a situation when you knew something was wrong and no one else saw it, you’ll connect with Christine. If you have a weak stomach, you may have to look away one or two times.

Death of Me releases October 2, and I can’t recommend it enough.