I’ll Take Your Dead review: Chad Archibald returns to Arrow Video Frightfest with something more personal than gooey body horror Bite.
I’ll Take Your Dead
Gloria (Ava Preston) is the teenage daughter of William (Aidan Devine). The pair live in relative seclusion and things have been tight since Gloria’s mother died. In need of bringing in extra money, William has started a new job, chopping up bodies. Known locally as ‘the Candy Butcher’, if any criminals need to make a body disappear, William is the man they take them to. He chops up the bodies and dissolves them. It’s not a conventional occupation, but it would all be fine were Gloria not be able to see the dead. Things get even more complicated when one of the dead bodies brought to them isn’t entirely dead. As William tries to figure out what to do with the very alive Jackie (Jess Salgueiro), a set of events are set into motion that leads to catastrophic results.
‘This story doesn’t have a happy ending’ speaks Gloria at the start of I’ll Take Your Dead. She’s not lying either as the film ends with a gut-punch to the emotions. With a cautionary comment like that at the beginning of the film, you have to try and harden yourself so that you don’t connect too deeply with the characters in case anything bad happens to them. That’s easier said than done though as I’ll Take Your Dead spends ninety-five percent of its run-time with the same three characters, Gloria, William, and Jackie.
At any one time, there are three stories playing out simultaneously. The first is a classic father-daughter relationship. It’s obvious that William and Gloria have had a good relationship in the past, but dad’s new job, Gloria’s ability, and the loss of the family’s matriarchal figure have left a chasm between them. Their plot-line explores them trying to reconnect with one another, and despite all the macabre drama happening around them, there are moments that single fathers of daughters will relate to. The next story-line is the relationship between Gloria and Jackie. It becomes clear very early on that Gloria sees Jackie as a surrogate mother. In many ways, there are some parallels that can be drawn between their relationship and that of John Connor and the T-800 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It’s sweet, and at times tender, relationship that offers a nice light against the darkness of everything else. The third and final plot strand follows the men who took Jackie to the house in the first place. This is much more of a side piece but does give Orphan Black‘s Ari Millen another opportunity to flex his bad guy muscles.
I’ll Take Your Dead
Director Chad Archibald is no stranger to Frightfest, his previous directorial offering Bite screened back in 2015, so he knows what the audience like. I’ll Take Your Dead is a very different beast to the body horror of Bite. Here everything is much more about relationships, subtle scares, and a general sense of foreboding brought about by Gloria’s early warning. In terms of cinematography, I’ll Take Your Dead keeps things dark and moody, which is followed through by the score.
A lovely character piece drenched in melancholy, I’ll Take Your Dead is haunting and heartbreaking in equal measure.
I’ll Take Your Dead was reviewed at Arrow Video Frightfest 2019.
