Death of Me | 2020 | R | – 5.7.7

Why is “Death of Me” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “violence, gore, sexual content and language.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a sex scene and several kissing scenes, several seemingly hallucinatory scenes with a man and a woman either being killed or killing others with eerie images including bloody wounds and zombie faces with mouths stitched closed, and over 20 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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A travel writer (Luke Hemsworth) and his wife (Maggie Q) wake up on a strange island without any memory of the previous 12 hours. While they are making plans to leave, they find a video showing one of them killing the other, and an impending typhoon, paranoia and supernatural events complicate their circumstances. Also with Alex Essoe, Kat Ingkarat, Caledonia Burr and Kelly B. Jones. Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman. Many lines are spoken in a Thai dialect without translation. [Running Time: 1:34]

Death of Me SEX/NUDITY 5

 – Video footage shows a clothed couple falling to their knees on the ground at night; the man rubs the woman’s buttocks and kisses her for several seconds, he turns the woman onto her hands and knees facing the camera, kneels behind her and thrusts several times (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details); she stands up in a long T-shirt covering her upper thighs. A man kisses a woman on the cheek and then her lips briefly in a couple of scenes and she kisses him on the cheek.
► Video footage shows a woman asking a man about a waitress saying, “Get a good look?” and he does not reply. A woman has an ultrasound that shows a fetus, but she says she is unable to have children.
► Several scenes include a woman wearing halter-tops that reveal cleavage and her bare abdomen. In a few scenes, a woman wears short-shorts, and a woman wears a lace crop top and tight underwear, revealing bare lower buttocks and cleavage.

Death of Me VIOLENCE/GORE 7

 – Several men grab a woman and march her away at night, they leave her on the ground and she gets up, opens a door and enters a dim hall: she walks slowly down two rows of men and women holding lighted candles and baskets of oranges, a cloud of mist shoots up and the camera cuts to the woman now tied to a stake as a man chants and injects something unknown into her eye, she screams, she is told she will be sacrificed and buried under a post in the center of town to ward off a typhoon, she screams, frees herself, grabs a metal rod and beats a shaman; she then runs away, chased by people and gets into a small motorboat.
► A woman is found dead in a boat and she is taken to shore where we see a line of men and women in body bags as a man places a medallion in a woman’s body bag, zips it shut, and she gasps awake to end the scene (we see that her eye is black and swollen).
► A husband and his wife awaken in an inn with no memory of the past 12 hours; the woman sees blood on the man’s fingers, but he does not know how it got there, they look at cell phone photos and footage on a video camera (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details) and the footage shows a man turning a woman onto her back on the ground and strangling her (we hear loud crunching as her neck breaks); the footage skips and we see the man digging dirt with his hands and then covering a hole with the dirt, they argue in real time and the woman runs to the bathroom where she sees wide red marks on her throat and she vomits a large amount of black dirt into the sink, gasping (we see goo).
► A man on a dock sees a fisherman slice open and remove organs from a bloodless fish as the first man picks up a large knife and with his back to the camera, stabs himself several times (we see blood gush and the bloody knife fall), he turns in profile and pulls his own bloody intestines out, lets them fall to the dock, and then he falls into the sea; the man’s wife see all this, screams, runs toward him and finds blood on the dock and the camera cuts to the woman arguing with a police officer that tells her she only saw fish blood. Two women and a young girl argue for several seconds in a moving car; one woman shoots the other woman in the head and blood gushes onto the car window, the car crashes loudly into a tree and the driver lies on the hood with blood covering her head, face and arms as the girl screams off-screen and the other woman runs away with some blood on her blouse. A few scenes include blurry faceless zombies that have mouths sewn shut. One sequence shows a woman tied to a table, looking groggy as zombies appear with one of them injecting a clear liquid into her eye; another sequence shows the same scene followed by the woman’s shorts landing on the ground and a large burlap cloth being held over her abdomen and thighs as she screams (we see blood dripping from a zombie’s sewn mouth in close-up). A woman with tattoos covering her throat and collar bones inside her neckline picks up a long tattoo punch-rod and stabs herself several times (blood gushes). A woman drinks from a small vial given to her by a doctor and she hears cheering and sees zombies that have no face except for mouths sewn shut. A group of islanders wear large masks with big eyes and large mouths full of crooked black teeth, chanting and singing as they walk along a street; a man accosts a tourist, stealing his phone, and the victim pushes through the masked people, runs, knocks down the thief and retrieves his phone. A large group of masked people marches in a parade and a woman’s face appears as a sculpture on a float.
► A series of violent scenes end with the camera cutting to a man and a woman sitting on a beach and in the last beach scene, a man says the woman is pregnant as she groans loudly, clutching her abdomen. A man shouts, “Wake Up!” throughout the film. A woman repeatedly finds a medallion around her neck, even after she has thrown it away; she is told by villagers that it keeps the wearer healthy and free of harm. A woman walks the shore and finds the water has been sucked out to sea ahead of a typhoon that we hear being forecast; she sees her dead husband lying face down in mud, runs screaming toward him and he vanishes. A woman nearby hands her a cellphone and she hears her husband’s voice whispering, and then the phone goes dead. A woman wakes up, screaming on a bench and on another day, wakes up screaming on a couch; she looks for her husband both times and a police officer says he is nowhere. A taxi driver shouts at a man and a woman holding an ice pack on her neck, and makes them get out of his cab; they exit, run to a ferry dock, cannot find their passports, and are denied passage; the woman shouts in anger.
► A doctor moves an ultrasound wand over a woman’s gelled abdomen and we see a fetus on a screen; we hear screeching and the doctor and nurse cover their ears as we see the fetus change into a dinosaur-like skeleton and the patient runs away. We hear a typhoon siren sound for several seconds and the next day, we see rubble, debris and fallen shacks as a voice-over states that a super typhoon leveled an island. A little girl says that her real mother is “down below,” meaning that she was sacrificed by villagers and buried in the town center. A woman says that an island cured her of stage three pancreatic cancer and to leave means she will die. A woman says that her teen son is dying without a cure. A woman tells another woman that she (the second woman) will be sacrificed to save the island from a typhoon in a 200-year-old tradition because she is pregnant. Two women argue in several scenes and a woman argues with a few men in different scenes.
► A woman gags, runs to a washroom, bends over a toilet and vomits loudly (we do not see what she vomits), she gasps, stands, gags, and pulls a small snake from her mouth; she leaves the washroom and her husband finds her lying face up on a sidewalk with blood on her blouse, and a long gash on her forearm and he helps her up (we see a bandage on her arm in the next several scenes).

Death of Me LANGUAGE 7

 – About 22 F-words and its derivatives, 5 scatological terms, 3 mild obscenities, name-calling (stupid, crazy, bastardized), exclamations (shut-up, whoo, whoa, hey), 15 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Oh God, God, We Honor Our Gods). | profanity glossary |

Death of Me SUBSTANCE USE

 – A man and a woman in a video footage drink shots of a powerful potion and slur their words until the woman passes out and off-screen as the footage next shows the couple stumbling into the night and onto some grass (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details), a woman sees a video and says that she was “way drunk,” a woman says a drink is a hallucinogenic called “dream bird” that can cause paranoia, hallucinations and death, a village bar scene includes a woman carrying a colorful drink on a tray, a rustic village bar has a few bottles of liquors on a shelf, a woman gives another woman a tall drink that the second woman refuses, a woman drinks from a small vial given to her by a doctor and she hears cheering and sees zombies, and a doctor writes a prescription for a woman that she does not fill.

Death of Me DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Ritual sacrifices, secrets, immortality, superstitions, Buddhism, religious hallucinations via drugged drinks, predestination, free will, natural disasters, violence, murder, rape, fear, self-defense, conflict, loss, grief, anger, shock.

Death of Me MESSAGE

 – In some places, magic may be stronger than science.