I'll Take Your Dead

Director - Chad Archibald (Bite, The Heretics)
Starring - Aidan Devine (Suicide Squad, WolfCop), Ava Preston (Shazam!, Critters Attack!), and Jess Salgueiro (Orphan Black, The Boys)
Release Date - 2018
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Death is knocking at their door"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     This year has been a rough one in terms of life changing events.  So many things, both good and bad, has happened this year and as a result I have put so many movies on hold for review.  Scream Factory is one that I slowed down reviewing.  Not because I dislike them but because they release so many amazing movies.  I didn't have the time to review everything sent to me at the time but now I'm making an effort to get everything reviewed.  As I work through some newer Scream Factory releases I decided to toss in their blu release of the Black Fawn film I'll Take Your Dead.  This is one I had been following for some time now.  I'm a fan of Black Fawn and look forward to their releases so when the opportunity happened for me to pop this one in I did just that.  Thank you Scream Factory for sending this one my way.

     The film follows single father William (Devine) and his young daughter Gloria (Preston) who live on a farm alone.  William makes a living disposing of bodies brought to him from various underworld organizations.  He plans on moving with his daughter and put this life behind him but he is confronted to work on three more bodies brought to him.  He agrees after some persuading and takes the last job.  However, one of the bodies is not dead at all.  When preparing the bodies he discovers that the young woman he is preparing is still alive.  He patches up her bullet wounds and ties her to the bed.  She manipulates his daughter and is able to trick her into getting her purse which has her phone in it that she uses to call her boyfriend oblivious that he betrayed her.  Her boyfriend realizes she is not dead like he had intended and goes to the farm with his partners to finish the job putting Willian and Gloria in grave danger.

     Director Chad Archibald has directed a few films that I had seen and reviewed in the past.  I really enjoyed Bite but The Drownsman was a bit of a let down.  Regardless of his hit and miss with me I was still excited for I'll Take Your Dead and it did not disappoint.  There is some things I didn't like about the film but it was still a highly enjoyable film.  The acting in this one is great.  The entire cast chips in and makes the film extremely fun.  I did like Aidan Devine's character more than the others and his performance as the loving father getting his hands dirty to take care of his daughter really spoke to me as a father.  His love for her came through in each scene and that resonated with me.  Now, with that being said, the cast was great but it was hard for me to like all the characters.  A majority really got under my skin which made the story not have the impact it was looking for.  I was too worried about these two characters dying rather than what was going on.  The story for this one worked.  It's more organized crime than horror but we do see the horror elements become dominate in the last 20 minutes or so of the film.  I really liked the body butcher aspect of the film with the man with a gruesome reputation being a loving father and righteous man.  Some of the characters could have been written to be a little more enjoyable but all in all I really liked the story and how it unfolded.  The excitement at the end of the film was not as exciting as the film wanted but that doesn't really take away from the overall film.  Finally, the film has some great practical effects and some serious blood but not as gory as one would hope for.  We see some amazing looking corpses and practical effects but the gore is lacking.  Overall, I'll Take Your Dead is a great addition to any horror fan's collection but does fall a little shy of being a masterpiece.  I highly recommend grabbing this one from Scream Factory.