Til Your Last Breath

After the passing of their father, Bijou (Quinn) and her sister Alice (Morse) are bequeathed via his last will and testament their late father's remaining assets, Alice receiving a house needing quite a bit work before turning marketable, while Bijou is entrusted with an undisclosed but cleary substantial amount of money.

During a visit to Alice’s recently acquired house, Bijou begins experiencing threatening phone calls and dark premonitions of a masked man coming after her. The question is; is everything Bijou sees all in her head? Or is someone playing a sinister game with her?

Til Your Last Breath, as you may have guessed already, is a short psychological thriller where the lines between reality and unreality are tremendously blurred, not just for poor Bijou, but its audience as well. But it also lets director Peter Dorn-Ravlin take another shot at an homage to the classic Giallo murder mystery and flex some muscles as a horror-genre filmmaker.

The film is definitely at it’s strongest in those horror moments, where the tension and intrigue is high and the film itself is at its peak. The monochromatic presenation mixed with unique and perspective-altering camera angles, not to mention a bone-chilling score makes these spooky and frankly creepy moments really shine. By keeping the gore and dramatics to a minimum and instead opting to let its quite unsettling vibe drive the terror, Dorn-Rawlins proves they both love and know what makes this genre tick.

Where the film loses a bit of its promising momentum is the spaces between those moments, mainly where the narrative moves to character exploration and back story. All three performances are deserving of merit, Quinn most so as the gaslit Bijou trying to unravel potential lunacy from reality, with conniving Alice and seemingly tractable Jason (a villain in his own right for his treatment of adorable dog Buster) rounding off a trio that are consistent if a little plain.

Unfortunately, both the performances and the script don't combine well enough to allow them the opportunity to feel authentic enough or investable enough to care about. The story itself is decent but one we’ve seen before, jealousy over bequeathed assets leading to sinister motivations. Where it possibly could have set itself apart by taking a sharp turn in it’s finale, instead it’s a fair but predictable ending that you wish could have left more of a mic drop.

A passionate homage to Giallo Italian horror, Til Your Last Breath still entertains despite a few bumps along the way.