Die Before You Die

Please note. The review for the cinema release was written having seen the film without subtitles. This was due to a technical hitch and not the intention of the filmmakers. For this review I have rewatched the film with subtitles and as a result recast my original review to reflect that. To be perfectly clear there is only one version of the film and its is subtitled.

Opening the film with the loud but not totally unlikable character like Adi (Ziad Abaza) isn’t a bad move by director Dan Pringle, and co-writer Ziad Abaza bearing in mind what follows.

Adi is a confident, possibly arrogant influencer with his own show, recording and releasing videos. The trouble is numbers are down, possibly because of an incident regarding burkas, which he apologised for. Or the aggressive competition from other influencers.

Regardless, he and friend Maz (Mim Shaikh) are looking for a new angle that can get their numbers up. A chance encounter with Lee (Harry Reid) gets them thinking.

Lee explains that he was challenged to be buried alive for three days, with limited resources. For him, the experience was life changing. For Maz and Adi there’s the potential for a story and a video that will increase numbers, and income.

The ceremony has to be approved by the elders at a meeting. Conducted mostly in Arabic by Sufis, a spiritual branch of Islam, they are assessed. The meeting is as much a presentation of the philosophy behind the ceremony (beautifully written conjuring up some vivid images), as an evaluation of the two men’s suitability.

Questioned about their work and reasons for taking part in the ceremony the elders probe them, teasing them about their ages, and their attitude to death that as young men they have a sense of immunity from it.

They agree to allow Adi and Maz to do the challenge. The next day the pair are driven to remote location and buried.
The expectation is that will receive water at 7am every day, through the air-pipe. Adi misses day one and from there his nightmare begins.

The abject horror of being buried alive is not new. The Corman/Poe adaptations feature it several times, more recently there’s Buried. The most horrifying I won’t mention save it gives too much away even though it was made in 1988.
However that is only part of the story here as Adi starts to question himself, his current life as well as how to get out of his situation. It’s a bipolar experience where his other self is represented by his daughter’s toy monkey that he’s taken with him.

The horror is self-evidently the burial, though Pringle doesn’t go out of his way to overplay the physical side of Adi’s interment, other than a few SFX later on.

This is much more psychological and spiritual, examining the man’s character, forced to question everything he knows throwing his mind into turmoil.

Its intense with Adi both raging at himself and others, grasping for reasons, then turning more contemplative as he starts to accept his fate. It’s a deft performance by Abaza, his facial features and vocal tones visualising for the viewer his mental torment.

Die Before You Die will be available digitally on 28 October 2024.