The trailer showed a married couple who go away to a lakefront cabin, with the intention of killing each other. It doesn't say why. It kind of shows how. It does what a trailer should - it catches your interest. So I went in expecting that sort of thing.
What I got was a movie that starts with what's in the trailer, but more. There's non-linear storytelling but they do it right by keeping it short. By showing different viewpoints things start to gain a wider perspective.
The reason they're trying to kill each other is for insurance money. The husband quit his job to make a go of his film career, after a minor success directing a movie. He's now doing low-budget commercials with low-budget paychecks. She's a struggling actress, at his instigation, and is resentful he didn't cast her in the one movie he made. They're broke and neither one likes it.
At this point things that were happening in the beginning of the movie make more sense because they were each establishing their alibi.
They're making their moves at the cabin and find out what the other one is doing. When they're doing the classic "run through the house trying to get at each other" some people fall through the ceiling on them.
These are escaped convicts. The same ones that were on the news in the background while they were being nice to each other before trying to kill each other. OK then.
Without detailing it all there's now a situation where the married couple have to work together so they both stay alive. Of course they start off with offering the killers part of the insurance money if they kill the other spouse. Then it devolves into them trying to get away.
The escaped convicts have the female prison guard along. One of the killers is Timothy Oliphant so yeah, they play up how he seduced her for the sole reason of helping them escape. Then he has to keep pretending so she doesn't do anything to get them captured again.
I can't quite remember when it winds in but the husband has a scene with his father who owns the lakefront cabin and is in assisted care. He's a feisty old guy.
The movie leans heavy into gore. It works because the whole movie goes over-the-top so the over-the-top gore matches. It's oddly not very bloody, just gory. If that makes sense. Anyway.
The death toll is:
- Both escaped convicts
- The prison guard who helped them escape
- The feisty father
The couple then capitalizes on their experience. Talk shows and then a movie version, where the wife stars and he directs. The whole experience brought them together as a couple too. In a way it's a weirdly twisted love story. With lots of gore.
It was more entertaining than I expected, which is a pleasant surprise. It took me looking up the movie on IMDb to figure out that the husband is the actor who played Marshall in "How I Met Your Mother". I knew he was familiar but couldn't place him. The wife is the same actress in the "Ready or Not" movies so the poor woman is still getting blood splattered. Go figure.
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