Get updated or die. Especially in horror movies, when the surprise fact is a must if you want to avoid falling into tediousness and oblivion. And technology has opened a door for new ways to scare the audience since… I don’t know, for example, Virtual Reality monsters in Brainscan (1994)? But although the internet and computers are great mechanisms to create scary stories perhaps the peak of it all is mobile phones. That little device that we have accustomed ourselves to keep by our side at all times and that is pretty much controlling our lives with all sorts of social, health, communication, information, dating and gaming apps. Until technology skin implants are not the new hype, the cell phone is that machine that is part of us the most.
Someone downloads an app on your phone behind your back. It’s an app with supernatural abilities. On the screen you see a countdown timer starting from 24 hours and before it reaches zero, you have to download the app to someone else’s phone to earn 24 more hours. And you must do it every single day. What would you do? Would you continue passing this curse and condemning other people?. That is the premise we find behind You Die (2018).
In the movie, Asia is a young student who finds an app on her phone. It looks like an augmented reality game, but soon she realizes it’s much more than that. It’s an app that connects to the world of the dead, which allows her to see ghosts through the camera of the phone. The timer starts counting down and Asia’s insanely horrific experience begins. People around her struggle to believe her as she ends up facing this evil curse and fighting for her survival, all by herself.
You Die, also known as You Die – Get the app, then die (2018), has been quoted by some as an Italian response to David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows (2014) in a technologic key. The movie is the debut feature film of Alessandro Antonaci, who has had Daniel Lascar and Stefano Mandalà as co-directors. The trio is also responsible for the screenplay of the film. It is starred by William Angiuli, Carola Cudemo, Micol Damilano, Ja’Michael Darnell, Teodoro Garruto, Erica Landolfi, Rocco Marazzita, Daniele Marmi, Simone Moretto, Alice Piano, and Simone Valentino.
You Die (2018) has been part of genre film festivals like the Screamfest Horror Film Festival in the USA, where it won the award for Best Cinematography, and Trieste Science+Fiction Festival in Italy. Now, Dark Sky Films has scheduled to release the film on DVD and Video on Demand platforms on May 12th. Here you can watch the official trailer for the film:
