Movie Review ~ All You Need is Death

We all have our bucket list of destinations and places to visit if we have the time and endless resources. While I’ve capped mine until I start to cross off a few more, Ireland still holds a place near the top. I love the country’s history, and that accent is never one I get tired of. Additionally, its rich cultural heritage is steeped in the kind of folklore, music, and storytelling that has influenced the theater productions and films I have warmed to over the years. Think of the flight of fancy whims on display in Darby O’Gill and the Little People or the charming comedy of Waking Ned Devine as examples, not to mention the stage musical Finian’s Rainbow or John Carney’s movie musicals Once and Sing Street, which have also made their way into live theatrical stagings.

While I’d likely be run out of Ireland along with the snakes for citing Far and Away (sorry, not sorry) as a favorite film of mine, I can easily be swayed to the darker side of Emerald Isle cinema. While not as instantly well-known or recognizable as other European countries in visual style, some Irish horror films can compete with their best. In recent years, Boys from County Hell (2020), You Are Not My Mother (2021), A Dark Song (2016), and minor classic Grabbers (2012) have brought more attention to the country, blending its deeply rooted traditions with contemporary narratives to produce stories of often haunting beauty.

With a heavy heart, I must report that writer/director Paul Duane’s All You Need is Death is entirely off the mark. It is a messy and aggressively dull 90 minutes that takes what starts as an interesting concept and fumbles it royally. Using Ireland’s celebrated customs involving folk music and storytelling passed down through generations as a jumping-off point, a premise dripping with dread starts to turn soggy before you can get comfortable in your seat. The longer the film goes on, the more you question how high it could have flown had the tantalizing premise not been squandered so thoroughly through a series of uninspired decisions.

Young couple Anna (Simone Collins, The Last Duel) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) have joined an underground society of folklorists obsessed with being the first to discover and safeguard obscure folk ballads. We get a tiny taste of how they work in an early scene where Anna plays on her sexuality and Aleks his brute strength to manipulate a hapless pub drunkard into telling them where they can find a local with countless songs (in his head) to share. Though they covertly record these encounters to get the song/singer on tape, Anna can remember music after hearing it once, a talent that comes in handy later.

They bring their latest find back to a group led by Agnes (Catherine Siggins), a mysterious woman who speaks in vague fortune cookie-like statements but who they feel they can trust with a secret they recently found concerning a new song that isn’t based on a known variant. Traveling to a remote community to meet the descendant of the keeper of this song, Rita Concannon (Olwen Fouéré, Texas Chainsaw Massacre), leads them down a dark path because this monotonous chant is tagged by a vicious curse that holds incredible power over anyone that hears it. Unsurprisingly, the song is heard and decoded, unleashing a malevolent force into the lives of Anna, Aleks, Agnes, and Rita.

In theory, focusing the narrative of a horror film around procuring a song that is merely heard is an audacious choice and rife with possibilities. It’s an unusual enough premise to make it distinct from other current offerings, and there is early promise that All You Need is Death will be a departure from the norm. Even the opening moments with a disembodied voice hissing out Gaeilge is creepy – I definitely quivered and wondered what I had gotten myself into.

Alas, the result of Duane’s film is baffling at best, exchanging the unnerving atmosphere with lollygagging tedium I found almost impossible to withstand.
I can see where you would write a plot surrounding this topic, but then to devote a significant amount of your run time to detailed minutiae of collecting the folk song sucks whatever life out of the project that the opening moments had started with. It could have been a terrifically creepy 40-minute short and been more effective overall.

Not helping matters is a lack of chemistry between Collins and Maher, and I’m not sure where precisely to assign fault here. Collins feels like she could have handled the movie on her own, and she’s intriguing enough when left to her own devices that I’m inclined to think it’s a combination of Maher being a dud and the script dropping the ball on giving either of them any personality whatsoever. Siggins fares better as a shadowy player in this game of cursed songs and violence, but Fouéré leaves the most lasting impression.  Whenever she is onscreen (and it’s not enough), she gives tiny hints of what the film could have been like, with every character taking the same captivating approach to their role.

Duane’s direction only intensifies the problems with the performances and his script, dwelling too long on superfluous scenes that need to be edited down or deleted. Instead of circling back on crucial junctures where the narrative could be explained better, he opts for drab slogs that never provide forward momentum for the plot. While they can sometimes bolster the low-budget trappings of films that struggle in other areas, the subpar visual aesthetics in All You Need is Death fail to give it any raw grit. Instead, it routinely highlights the cracks in the veneer on every level and all but points out the limitations the production faced getting this film made. It comes across as an overly ambitious student project instead of a professional cinematic release.

Not every film (horror or otherwise) needs a luxe production budget to be a success. Plenty of films have done a lot with a little, and the result can be special, but the amateur-hour underpinnings of All You Need is Death only highlight the overall creative shortcomings. That’s pretty disappointing, considering this is a tale from a nation whose arty uniqueness is fundamentally linked to devotion to the spoken (and sung) word. What begins as an eerie peek into a world of Irish mythology that will be foreign to most devolves into a forgettable misfire devoid of dimensionality. Underscored by performances that lack conviction and directing that glosses over multiple opportunities to mine potential dread, the lesson here is that even the most promising premise can stumble without the necessary craftsmanship to give them life.