Set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Death of Us imagines a world of even stricter lockdowns, greater danger, and martial law. The thriller uses footage from the early days of the pandemic to tell a very personal story about two roommates just trying to get through the mind-numbing days of lockdowns, while dealing with restricted freedoms. The film’s dystopian premise is a bit outlandish, but the feature does succeed at showing how the pandemic deeply affected people on a very personal level.
The movie stars Dana Schick as Katie and Ahku as Katie’s roommate Morgan. The film immediately transports viewers back to the days of March 2020, with news clips of Trump talking about the virus. The film incorporates other news footage throughout the runtime and the increasing daily death count. All of this is a grim reminder of the profound loss COVID caused and the uncertainty following lockdowns.
Meanwhile, Katie and Morgan struggle to maintain their finances. Katie, who teaches fitness classes, loses client over client, even when she shifts to teaching over Zoom. A lot of her clients lose their jobs. Morgan, meanwhile, who cleans and repairs cars, also loses customers. The two also clash. Katie insists on wearing a mask everywhere where she goes, while Morgan barks at her to stop watching the news so much. The film handles well the different views and responses to the pandemic.
Besides their dwindling finances, Katie and Morgan suffer an even greater loss when someone close to both of them dies from the virus after working on the front lines. That someone is Katie’s fiancé, Devin (Yonash Breneman). Again, this film really shows the personal costs of the pandemic. Meanwhile, Katie and Morgan spend their days cleaning the apartment over and over again and trying to stretch food for as long as they can, since they’re so short on cash and hard up for work. The film also succeeds at showing just how painfully long the lockdowns felt and how we all felt trapped inside of our homes, with nothing to do but vacuum the living room for the tenth time.
By the second half, the film shifts into a dystopian thriller featuring sirens and martial law. Katie and Morgan hatch a plan to try to evade martial law so they can do something else other than sit inside of their homes. The film falters some in the second half, when it suddenly shifts tone and genre.
The Death of Us doesn’t quite work as a dystopian thriller. However, it does succeed when it elevates the personal and showcases how the COVID-19 pandemic affects two roommates just trying to survive. Viewers may not yet want to dive back into those early days of the pandemic, but this feature is a good reminder of the very personal losses COVID caused and the broader ripple effects it sparked, still felt today in the form of inflation, political instability, and extreme populism.
