Die before you die – REVIEW

As someone who has spent a significant portion of my life scrolling through social media and witnessing the rise of influencers, I can confidently say that “Die Before You Die” is a breath of fresh air. It’s a stark reminder of the hollow lives these individuals lead, trapped in their own self-made cocoons, oblivious to the real world.

We’ve proposed several innovative concepts to update TV shows – for instance, adding a Bengal tiger as a secret participant in Big Brother, transporting the Made in Chelsea cast to Mogadishu, and perhaps most contentiously using real celebrities in I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! However, none were accepted. But the show Die before you Die offers the most intriguing idea – burying individuals alive for three days with just an air pipe and a small amount of water. An added twist is that this time it would be an ‘influencer’ who gets buried, that bunch of self-absorbed individuals who can’t write without getting ink on their clothes.

Here, the individual in question is Adi (Ziad Abaza), who seems excessively boastful and reckless, sharing every aspect of his life on social media to his seemingly mesmerized followers. Despite being a married man with a young daughter, Adi acts more like an aspiring teenage gangster, addressing everyone as ‘bruv’, ending nearly every sentence with, ‘yeah?’, and labeling everything as ‘safe’, which he will soon discover is far from the truth. During his visit to a shisha bar, he is identified by Lee (Harry Reid), whom he mistakenly labels as a ‘superfan’. However, it becomes apparent that Lee is not a superfan, given his ability to construct coherent sentences and his lack of the vacant, glassy-eyed expression often seen in Brooklyn Beckham when asked about his profession.

Lee proposes a daring challenge that Adi thinks will help him surpass the 100k subscriber mark. The task Lee sets is for Adi to fake being buried alive and claim responsibility, knowing someone who could arrange such an event. Struggling for likes and followers, Adi agrees and brings his friend Maz (Mim Shaikh) along. Not long after, they encounter a group of Sufi Muslim elders who explain that this will be a spiritual awakening, encouraging Adi to leave his materialistic past behind.

With a lantern, a digital timepiece, confident of receiving water every morning at 7 am for the next three days, and being later buried in an unidentified field featuring a substantial, deep pit, it’s hard not to wonder about potential complications as they are escorted with hoods covering their faces towards this unsettling location.

For anyone who suffers from claustrophobia the initial moments when Adi overrules his rank stupidity to do the challenge is the most uncomfortable scene as he climbs down a ladder and then has to slide himself into a coffin sized space at the side of the hole. Pulling a section of board across the tight space the soil is shovelled on top of him. It is the stuff of nightmares and so begins his turmoil – alone inside what is essentially now an unmarked grave with only a tiny toy money figure his daughter has given him. Pretty quickly the questions inside his head begin. It’s a highly effective technique as the questions arise seemingly from the child’s toy acting almost as an alter ego and answered by him as a voiceover as his paranoia and panic increases when the promised water doesn’t arrive after the first day and three days comes and quickly goes and he has not been dug out.

Under the direction of Dan Pringle, who previously helmed the underrated ‘K-Shop’, this new production maintains his penchant for exploring somber subjects. The ‘buried alive’ motif, frequently seen in films like ‘Kill Bill 2’ and ‘Buried’, is utilized here, starting off as an almost suffocating experience of claustrophobia. However, the film often breaks free from this confinement, providing much-needed relief.

Here’s the Die before you die trailer……

2024-10-03 02:23

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