I'LL TAKE YOUR DEAD (2018) (Theatrical Review)

I'LL TAKE YOUR DEAD (2018) 

Label: Shout! Studios
Duration: 83 Minutes
Rating: Not Rated
Directed by: Chad Archibald
Cast: Aidan Devine, Ava Preston, Jess Salgueiro, Ari Millen, Brandon McKnight, Michael Reventar, Adam Christie, Raffaele Brereton, Tavaree Daniel-Simms, Moe Jeudy-Lamou

Director Chad Archibald and Black Fawn Films have been toiling away making some very good indie horror films the past few years, first coming to my attention via the Wes Craven-ish bogeyman film The Drownsman (2014) and the extra-terrestrial thriller Ejecta (2015) - both of which I liked but didn't love. However, his next film Bite (2015) was firmly in the I loved it category, a body horror entry with some really gross effects, a tighter and more well-crafted film all around. This brings us to his latest film, I'll Take Your Dead (2018), starring Aidan Devine (Wolf Cop) as a rural farmer named William who lives on an isolated parcel of land with his precocious twelve-year old daughter Gloria (Ava Preston, TV's The Strain). William has a macabre side business her operates out of his basement, criminals bring him dead bodies and pay him money to make them go away. Using a bathtub full of acid and variety of knives and bone-saws he hacks up the corpses and makes them disappear, never to be seen again. 

His daughter is aware of what's happening down in the basement, she even helps out a bit, but she describes her father as a good man who does bad things, and sure enough he does seem to be a good father, caring and considerate but also strict, and in that line of work I guess you would have to have clear boundaries, which is kind of were William screws up later. With such gruesome things happening in the home the young girl's been touched by the macabre, she sees the ghosts of those who have been dismembered in the home, and at first it's sort of implied these could just be manifestations of her mind, not necessarily a real sixth sense sort of thing.  

We learn that William has developed a bit of a reputation among the local criminal community, they've dubbed him the "candy butcher", with wild rumors of cannibalism and bathing in a tub full of human blood.
These rumors are discussed by a local crew of hoods led by Reggie (Ari Millen, Orphan Black) who show up at William's farm  with a trio of bodies to dispose of. Things start-off on a bad note, one of the dead is a teen, which violates William's personal code of conduct - no kids, but when they throw money and a veiled threat aimed at his daughter he reluctantly accepts. Preparing the bodies down in the basement a young woman among the corpses, Jackie (Jess Salgueiro, Channel Zero), springs to life, not quite as dead as she at first seemed. This puts William in a weird position, he's not a killer, he's a disposer, and it's this conflict that leads into a messy unraveling of things. 

I'll Take Your Dead is a film with rich characters and drama that really hook you right from the get-go, but it's also macabre and gruesome, infused with an intriguing
supernatural element, and well-shot with moody cinematography. The main cast is solid through and through, there's not a weak link in the bunch, the human drama highlighted not just by the warm but strange father and daughter relationship, but also with the daughter reaching out for a female role model in an unlikely place. Then we have Ari Millen as the big bad, playing a low-life criminal to the hilt, it's all good stuff. 

This is far and away the best work yet from director Chad Archibald, I've always been keen to see what he's gonna do next, it's always something a bit different from what he did last time, and I'm even more keen to see what's comes next for this rising talent. I'll Take Your Dead opens in U.S. cinema and On Demand everywhere May 3rd, 2019, check it out, you won't be disappointed.