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Review: ‘She Never Died’ Brings Female Fury to an Immortal Tale
She Never Died is a tangential sequel to 2015’s Henry Rollins-lead He Never Died, which follows Rollins’ Jack as he shuffles through his immortal life with deadpan delivery and a never ending stream of trouble. More spinoff than sequel, She Never Died takes the story of a cannibalistic immortal and twists in a decidedly feminist edge.
Written by Jason Krawczyk (He Never Died) and directed by Audrey Cummings (Tormented aka Berkshire County), She Never Died follows Lacey (Olunike Adeliyi, Saw 3D: The Final Chapter), a socially detached loner with a vigilante hobby that provides her with the human flesh she needs for sustenance. When one of her food runs catches the attention of a dark web streaming site, Lacey becomes tangled up in a world of underground crime that threatens to destroy her.
As a side effect of one of her vigilante justice escapades, Lacey develops a friendship with Suzzie (Kiana Madeira, Level 16), an excitable but jaded sex worker. With her chatty intrusions, Suzzie has all the potential to be an insufferable character, but Madeira is so utterly charming that you’re immediately won over. Even after a traumatic experience, she’s full of light.
Adeliyi as Lacey is rigid and disinterested, but with flashes of intensity that remind you what the character is capable of. It’s a performance that could easily be misinterpreted as wooden, however, the more time we spend with the character, the more it clicks in. It is perhaps unfair to compare her performance with Rollins’ in He Never Died, but it’s difficult not to draw connections when the characters are so matched in their persona.
With its change in pronouns, She Never Died brings a female focus to the world of the immortal biblical cannibal. We don’t learn what Lacey’s role is until the very end of the film, but there are limited options from the source material, so you can probably hazard a good guess. That said, not much time is spent on the lore and laws of the character; She Never Died already assumes you’ve seen the first film. While this is fine for anyone who has, those that haven’t might find the loose ends to be a tad confusing.
She Never Died has some strong female characters at its core, each with their own complexities. Both of our leads are women of color with troubled histories. When we first meet Lacey she is living on the streets. Unlike Jack, she does not have millennia of white male privilege to keep her comfortable. Her newfound friend Suzzie is vibrant, confident, and personable, providing a positive representation of a sex worker. She has depth and personality; she’s eager to get involved, though she is thoroughly independent. And to go against the trope that’s so common in horror films, she isn’t killed or otherwise punished in a gruesome way.
The “big bad” of the film is a curious character herself. Meredith (Michelle Nolden, RED) runs a human trafficking ring where she shuttles girls off to the highest bidder. It’s a bold operation, and one that’s not typically headed by women. There’s something about it that feels like a betrayal — that calculated destruction of female solidarity. It’s an effective way to establish her as a horrible person and a deeply unethical threat.
She Never Died balances themes of judgement and justice, solidarity and independence. Its grander themes of immortality and consequence aren’t fully explored, which is a shame because there are some great opportunities that come with such an open premise. This seems to fall more on the script than the direction, but again, if you have seen the first film it grants a bit more context.
As a straight film (without the context of a sequel), She Never Died brings a few things to the table. It has an interesting story, some great visuals and tense moments, and fun gore to satisfy the horror hounds. But the plot details on their own — without the proper context — could easily confuse viewers. To get the most out of the film, you really should watch both parts. Think of She Never Died as a companion piece; it can stand on its own, but it’s part of a whole.
Everyone has their demons, but for She Never Died, the devil is in the details.
She Never Died will have its U.S. Premiere at ScreamFest (Hollywood, Los Angeles) on October 10.
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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.
We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.
“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”
That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”
Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:
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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.
Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.
Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.
Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.
Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.
The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.
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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date
Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.
Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.
These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:
According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”
Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.
Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.
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