Megan Fox goes through the wringer handcuffed in tight, slickly constructed "Till Death"

Till Death (2021)

In the sweepstakes of acting challenges that can carry the weight of a movie, Megan Fox does it handcuffed to the corpse of her character's dead husband. In the slickly shot and smartly constructed cat-and-mouse thriller “Till Death,” her character must also drag said corpse around without being seen by home intruders. Don’t be quick to judge that this sounds like “Gerald’s Game,” 2017's excellent Stephen King adaptation where Carla Gugino was handcuffed to her bed next to her dead-from-a-heart-attack husband. Handcuffs and a dead husband are exactly where the similarities begin and end. Within its own macabre ball-and-chain concept, “Till Death” delivers the suspense, nasty goods, and a strong performance from Fox in a tight 88 minutes.

Fox plays Emma, an unfaithful wife who's about to celebrate her wedding anniversary with her equally unfaithful lawyer husband, Mark (Eoin Macken). He takes her to their winter lake house, where they share a romantic evening, complete with candles and rose petals. By morning, she is handcuffed to Mark, who tells her to wake up and then blows his head off. Spattered by his blood and shell-shocked, Emma has to figure out how to untether herself from her dead husband without a key. Till death do they part, huh? Then, to further complicate things, two brothers (Callan Mulvey, Jack Roth) break in to steal something from a safe in their closet. It’s not just a random in-and-out mission, and that’s all you really need to know. Everything else—how she tiptoes around, outsmarting these men and trying to survive this bloody, snow-covered ordeal—hinges on surprise and the entire reason we’re watching.

As simple as the plot is—there is a MacGuffin that remains just that—“Till Death” keeps the plates spinning quite well. Jason Carvey’s script gets the job done, but it’s the clean yet ruthless direction (and complete use of that lake house) by debuting feature helmer SK Dale that helps sell it all. There are a few times where the viewer just has to take the film’s word, suspending disbelief that the intruders have no peripheral vision or that Emma can come up with an out in the nick of time, and yet, isn’t that part of the fun? 

Aside from her lead turn in “Jennifer’s Body” and the occasional supporting role in “Friends with Kids” and “This Is 40,” it seems like the film industry has never fully known what to do with Megan Fox, being cast in uncomplicated roles where she was just a pretty face with a hot body. In playing Emma, the role almost has a meta subtext, as if the underestimated actress herself is getting revenge for being used as a pure eye-candy accessory. Having made mistakes in her life and her unfaithful marriage, Emma is still very sympathetic, and Fox gives her all to everything Emma experiences. Not only a terrific sport when being put through the wringer, Fox gets to be smart and resourceful, albeit in ways that feel spontaneous and not pre-planned. By the end of it all, Emma will surely need a hypothermia blanket and stitches, that’s for sure, but it’s all worth it for the exceedingly satisfying crowd-pleaser “Till Death” to exist. 

Grade: B

Screen Media is releasing “Till Death” (88 min.) in theaters and on demand on July 2, 2021.