A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE (2010) – every time a serial killer gets caught we all wonder how the hell his friends and family never caught onto what he was doing. A Horrible Way To Die takes that idea and runs with it on two bloody little feet. One part love story, two parts serial killer thriller, this festival favorite got zero attention when it opened theatrically, and that’s too bad. A smart, savage love story, it’s all about Sarah, a recovering alcoholic and the recovering live-in girlfriend of Garrick Turrell, the most notorious serial killer in modern American history. He’s rotting in prison, she’s trying to piece her life back together, and then everything gets turned upside down when he escapes and it turns out nothing will stop him from coming back home to the woman he still loves. But that’s not the real story, and there are some nasty surprises lurking around the corner. Serial killer movies may be played out, but this indie horror show finds that there’s still some life in its tired old corpse yet. Director Adam Wingard’s following film, You’re Next, was acquired by Lionsgate after a bidding war at the Toronto Film Festival, and with A Horrible Way to Die you can tell that he’s already one of the smartest young directors of American horror. (Watch it!)
