Everyone Is Going To Die

Everyone is Going to Die is my debut feature as Writer & Director and to some extent it’s a film that I didn’t want to make. I was hesitant because it is a particularly difficult tale to watch. Think ‘Irreversible’ or ‘Funny Games’ difficult.

It concerns a family that is paid a visit by a pair of armed masked intruders who go by the nom de plumes ‘Comedy’ and ‘Tragedy’. So far so familiar huh? What appears to be a standard robbery soon evolves into something wholly different. Their motives are murky and they seem to have other axes to grind.

The lines between victim and perpetrator

As we learn more about all of the characters, the lines between victim and perpetrator become blurred as the game of cat and mouse shifts away from your standard home invasion film into a gut punch reveal at the end which hopefully leaves the audience with lots to ponder after the credits roll. It’s a movie about how trauma begets trauma, how unloved ones don’t know how to love (The original title was Unloved Ones incidentally.)

My influences

As a filmmaker the films that interest me most have always been those with subtext. I like movies that take a tried and tested genre or subgenre, and then use it to make some kind of statement or point. The most successful example in recent years is the masterpiece ‘Get Out’. These movies are often called ‘elevated genre’, but I think it’s a much simpler question than that. “Is the film saying anything?”.

I love a good action movie or horror, but the ones that stand the test of time or that hit on that deeper level are the ones that say something. Die Hard is about a husband trying to reconnect with his family at Christmas. I like thriller’s such as ‘Michael Clayton’, ‘The Constant Gardener’. I can’t stand horror hits such as ‘Terrifier’. I know that franchise has a (huge) audience, but it’s not saying anything to me.

The home invasion trope

Everyone Is Going To Die takes the home invasion trope and flips it upside down. “What if someone broke into your house and forced you to torture them?” Whether you really go along with it or it deeply offends you, it’s a gruelling watch.

Rue Morgue said in a flatteringn review: “A sharp and stunning feature debut from director and writer Craig Tuohy, EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE upends the home invasion genre and provides surprising depth.”

So why make it? And why make this my debut. I’d had offers before that I turned down simply because they didn’t speak to me. The truth is, I had to make this film. It’s a film about processing latent trauma (isn’t everything these days?). I have latent C-PTSD from events that happened both in my childhood and more recently. I knew nothing about PTSD until I started to notice triggers affecting my behaviour.

At the lowest point, before I sought help through therapy and medication I wrote this script. I wrote it almost without realising I was doing so. It sat in my virtual drawer for a few years and then one day I took it out and I realised that it was a purging. It was an exorcism. I was turning my pain into metaphorical drama.

Fade Out

The film has been received with both high praise and vitriol in equal measure. And both are valid. I am thankful to both Saban and High Fliers for believing in the film and giving it a decent release, and for the fact that it’s the rarest of beasts, a truly independent British film that will recoup its budget. But truth be told, I didn’t make the film for an audience. I made it because I had to.