Die Alone 
Written and Directed by Lowel Dean
Starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Douglas Smith, Kimberly-Sue Murray, Frank Grillo
Runtime: 1 hour 31 minutes
In theaters and available digitally October 18

by Heidi Krull, Staff Writer

I always love watching a zombie film during the Halloween season, and I find the sub-genre to contain some of the most creative twists in all of horror. Die Alone features plant-like zombie creatures and humans who are desperately trying to escape their grasp. Although I thought the plot was fresh and interesting, too many aspects were disjointed, leaving me puzzled.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Die Alone stars Douglas Smith as Ethan, a man who continuously wakes up in a nightmare. Ethan has amnesia and forgets the events of each day, but he knows he is looking for his girlfriend, Emma (Kimberly-Sue Murray), who went missing after they got into a car crash. Ethan stumbles across Mae (Carrie-Anne Moss), who saves his life and takes him into her home. Ethan soon begins to suspect something is off with Mae, but even worse, that something is off with himself. This film explores surviving in a dismal, zombie filled world, and gives us a personal look into someone who is, as Lowell Smith says, “waking up every day to the worst day of your life.”

The zombies in Die Alone are fairly reminiscent to those in The Last of Us, albeit plant-based instead of fungal, but are also realistically terrifying. The beginning of the film immediately drew me into Ethan’s story, and let me know off the bat how horrible his life has become. However, the strong elements of the film were overshadowed heavily by the nonsensical pacing. While I loved the very start, soon after that, the film’s pace slowed dramatically. Ethan meeting Mae, who is a mysterious character, could have been the pivotal moment it was intended to be, but there was too much time spent on drawn out dialogue scenes that were sometimes entirely unnecessary to the plot. The film also focused a lot of energy on the isolation Ethan was facing, which I enjoyed at first, but it was not what I was looking for in a zombie film. I believe there should have been more interactions with the actual zombies, rather than with the two main characters’ rather undeveloped backstories.

Of all the reasons I did not find this film enjoyable, the uninspired writing stood out to me the most. They were seemingly going for a Groundhog Day (1993) vibe, which I do occasionally enjoy, but in Die Alone, it came across as boring. Much of the dialogue felt choppy and unrealistic. Additionally, I felt like the characters were repeating the same points, so much so that I thought I was experiencing the same day over and over. This was made more glaring by the continuous and pointless introduction to new characters. Halfway through the film, for example, Ethan finds his way back to his and Emma’s cabin, but finds a mother and child there instead. There is not very subtle foreshadowing of a twist, robbing it of tension. What the film was attempting to do with Ethan’s story was compelling on paper, but dull in execution.

With everything I could critique about Die Alone, I do think that one specific element of the ending deserves its flowers. Though the audience believes that Ethan will die by the end, the film flips that expectation on its head, and semi-successfully subverts the zombie movie norm that the main characters will forever be unhappy. Despite the fact that this aspect was decent, the overall ending still felt rushed and incomplete. As Ethan’s amnesia continues to worsen, the film includes more flashbacks that remind both him and the audience of his situation. I initially thought this was a clever addition, but the film took far too many detours and beat around the bush until it was too late. I will say, though, that Ethan and Mae’s combined story did have a kind of satisfying ending despite everything.

If Die Alone was a normal drama film instead of a zombie horror, it may have been more successful. There were a few elements that worked pretty well together, but there was always one puzzle piece that was askew enough to throw the film’s energy off. It almost felt like I was watching an incomplete, though hopeful, project with interesting ideas.