To Your Last Death Blu-ray Review

Animated Torture Porn… Comedy?!

To Your Last Death stars the vocal talents of Morena Baccarin (Gotham), Ray Wise (Twin Peaks), Dani Lennon, Bill Moseley (House of 1000 Corpses), and even William Shatner in a supporting role. A bizarrely animated horror-action comedy hybrid, think Groundhog Day poorly mixed with zealous torture porn.

Times must be tough for these stars to appear in such a messy, underwhelming movie that is amateur hour from beginning to end. To Your Last Death may be your thing if badly animated gore sequences do it for you; everyone else should probably skip it. There’s definitely more than enough blood and torture.

To Your Last Death has corny dialogue, odd-looking animation and an edgy sense of humor that never really works

Miriam DeKalb (Dani Lennon) must save her three siblings from certain death in a recurring loop, trapped in some sort of cosmic game played by a being known as the Gamemaster (Morena Baccarin). Ray Wise voices Cyrus DeKalb, a ruthless business icon that hates his four adult children. The cartoonishly over-the-top Cyrus has animosity towards Miriam for ruining his political career and has set them all up for death.

The gory premise is laden with copious amounts of blood and violence, all poorly animated. The half-baked plot offers up caricatures instead of characters. Most everything that happens is an excuse for someone to die horrifically on screen.

Maybe if To Your Last Death was animated with realistic designs and quality frame rates some of it would hit harder like Japan’s darker anime. Here it becomes almost comedic fodder with the shoddy, awkward animation. One needs a dark and juvenile sense of humor for this stupid black comedy’s inane plotting and premise.

To Your Last Death has corny dialogue, odd-looking animation and an edgy sense of humor that never really works. One wonders how Morena Baccarin and William Shatner were roped into this amateurish mess. Ray Wise’s hammy showing as Cyrus is about the only redeeming thing of value from the movie.

Video

The flat animation in To Your Last Death is quite limited with stiff movement and bizarre character designs. I’ve seen motion comics with smoother fluidity. It’s hard distinguishing if this was a conscious aesthetic choice or merely a result of budgetary limitations. Clearly made outside the Hollywood system, it is rough and unrefined. The only character who looks respectable may be Cyrus DeKalb, modeled after Ray Wise’s own appearance.

There’s no disputing the bright, vivid color palette and clean lines. A fairly standard 1.78:1 animated presentation, To Your Last Death has perfect black levels and an intense contrast.

The indie production frankly resembles an unfinished Adult Swim or Cartoon Network reject, badly rushed to completion.

The main feature runs 91 minutes on a BD-25. The AVC encode from new label Quiver gets the job done with minimal compression artifacts. The 1080P video has a few eye-catching scenes but the recycled backgrounds and rough art direction make for a disjointed experience.

Audio

Animated productions always have a leg up when it comes to audio design because everything is recorded in a recording booth or on a professional soundstage. To Your Last Death is no exception in that regard. Fairly inexperienced releasing BDs, Quiver only includes a lossy 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack.

This is an active surround mix with in-your-face sonic moments. Expect a loud and heavy soundtrack that is a bit too much at times, with roaring chainsaws and blood flying everywhere.

There’s a lively presence and weight to dialogue, especially Shatner’s booming narration as the Overseer. That being said, everything is a little overcooked. The discrete mix features meaty bass with a visceral soundstage spread across the room.

Optional English SDH subtitles play in a white font. Secondary 2.0 Dolby Digital audio is an option.

Extras

Quiver Films has few Blu-ray releases under its belt and To Your Last Death is a barebones disc. A cardboard slipcover is included. My review copy did not contain the digital extras promised on Amazon and in the press release reproduced below. Readers may have to help us out if retail copies in fact have a code.

The press release touts “Each Blu-ray purchase will come with a redemption code to over 4 hours of digital extras, including: an audio commentary with director Jason Axinn, a Zoom panel with Axinn, star Dani Lennon and others, an interview with star William Shatner, interviews and behind the scenes with stars Morena Baccarin, Ray Wise, Bill Moseley, Dani Lennon and Florence Hartigan, a behind the scenes reel, comic con panels, an animation demo with lead animator Mohammad Ali Sharifpour, unused artwork and animation, crowdfunding highlights, featurettes on the development of the film, and more.”

To Your Last Death Trailer (01:45 in HD)

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