EVERY TIME I DIE

Directed by: Robi Michael

Starring: Marc Menchaca, Erica Camarano, Melissa Macedo, Drew Fonteiro, Michelle Macedo

Sam, a paramedic in New York, is having problems. He keeps having blackouts and sometimes ending up in weird places. He's also been having an affair with his friend Tyler's wife, Mia, while he's been away on active duty. While at a weekend in the country, Tyler finds out about the affair and murders Sam, but this only leads to Sam's consciousness drifting into his friend's bodies, allowing him to take control and try to solve his own murder…

Watching this reminded me of SHIFTER, in that while it has all the hallmarks of a genre thriller, it is more interested in the metaphysical journey that Sam's consciousness is on than it is with providing any action. This is especially true for the first third of the film. As the story commences, the audience is literally looking out of Sam's eyes, as the camera takes his point of view. I was worried that this "gimmick" was going to be utilised for the whole film, which would have been problematic. What it does do, however is introduce Sam (via a bathroom mirror) as if both we and Sam himself are seeing him for the first time.

Sam's blackouts get him into trouble when he arrives at Tyler's house for the weekend get-together. As we saw at the start of the film, Sam had been sleeping with Tyler's wife Mia and he was angry watching her welcome Tyler back from duty. A terse conversation shows that Sam had promised her he wouldn't show up this weekend but he'd forgotten the phone call entirely in his blackout. Sam's condition worsens during the evening, to the point where Jay has to stage a little intervention with his friend and show him a video of him earlier that evening. It must be very strange to watch yourself and have no memory of it at all. This is one of the themes of the film though, that Sam feels detached from his own existence.

After being killed, this feeling of detachment becomes a reality and Sam finds himself in the body of his best friend, Jay, waking up next to Jay's wife Poppy (who happens to be Mia's sister). Unfortunately Sam panics, leading everyone to believe that Jay is having a psychotic episode. All but Tyler, who suspects the truth….

The film is interspersed with flashbacks to Sam's childhood and the loss of his sister Sarah. Its always been a key moment in his life and in death he is able to go back to it and even interact to a point. There's a scene where we see an old woman staring back at us, and we have no idea of the context until towards the end of the film.

This film is beautifully shot and contains good performances. However the pace of the film might frustrate people (it’s a good half hour setting up the various players and sketching out Sam's character and backstory). Even when the more conventional genre elements come into play, the script has a habit of meandering off at a tangent for a while before refocusing. For example, one character finds themselves trapped in the back of a pickup as it plunges into the lake but the film wanders away from this for about 10 minutes before resolving it. On the one hand I can respect the film's resolve to keep chipping away at Sam's character to find the central conceit driving him. However while I'm watching those scenes, I am itching to find out what happened to the person in the truck!

THE VERDICT

There are two unresolved issues with the script - how come Sam is able to do all these things (there is a hint that it might be linked to what happened when his sister died)?  And what happens to the "soul" of the person when he possesses them? Other than those niggles, this is a film which started slow, retained a measured pace but definitely grew on me and pulled me into its story. To that end, as mentioned above, it reminded me a lot of SHFTER, another character study disguised as a genre film.

7 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)