The Future Is Bleak — Especially If You Watch This Movie
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Final Destination and Limitless had a child raised on expired energy drinks and bad Wi-Fi, look no further than Tell Me How I Die (2016). Directed by D.J. Viola — a name that sounds like someone who should be DJ-ing Coachella, not directing movies — this film tries to mix sci-fi and horror but ends up as cinematic NyQuil.
It’s a movie about college students taking part in a memory-enhancement drug trial that goes predictably wrong, because apparently no one in horror movies has ever heard of an NDA or ethical testing protocols. The only side effect worse than the ones in the movie is watching it yourself.
The Setup: “Clinical Trial” is Code for “Death Trap”
Our story begins with Dr. Layton introducing A9913, a drug that supposedly boosts memory by turning your brain into a human DVR. Sounds cool, right? Wrong. Because as soon as you give any group of twenty-somethings a mysterious pill in an isolated facility, you can bet your last student loan payment that the only memories they’ll be reliving are their last moments alive.
Enter Anna (Virginia Gardner), our protagonist, who looks like she’s wandered in from a better movie. She joins a group of forgettable human placeholders — Den (Nathan Kress, from iCarly, proving Nickelodeon didn’t prepare him for this), Marcus, Kristen, and a guy literally named Scratch (played by Ryan Higa, because apparently YouTubers are cheaper than actors).
They’re locked in a sterile lab to test the drug under the supervision of Dr. Jerrems (William Mapother, who seems to play “vaguely sinister scientist” in his sleep). Everything’s going fine until the guinea pigs start seeing visions of their deaths, and then the movie decides to stop making sense.
The Science: Sponsored by the Department of Dumb Ideas
Let’s get one thing straight: the science in Tell Me How I Die makes the plot of The Meg look like The Theory of Everything. The drug gives people the ability to “remember the future,” which sounds deep until you realize that’s just another way of saying “premonitions, but we needed it to sound like it passed peer review.”
Apparently, time isn’t linear, memory is magic, and mustard gas is the lab’s new air freshener. I don’t know if anyone on set passed high school chemistry, but I’m confident someone failed storytelling.
Every time the movie tries to explain itself, it feels like listening to a stoned philosophy major explain string theory. “Bro, what if the past and future are, like, happening now?” Yes, bro. What if the audience’s brain cells are, like, dying?
The Characters: The Real Side Effect Is Boredom
You’d think a movie about seeing your own death would give us people worth caring about. You’d be wrong.
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Anna, our lead, is smart but perpetually confused, like she’s trying to find the exit to the movie.
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Den is the love interest, because the script needed someone to yell “Anna!” before getting stabbed.
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Marcus is the jerk. He dies. It’s poetic.
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Kristen is the token “girl who saw something terrible and will now spend the next 30 minutes screaming.”
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Scratch is supposed to be comic relief, but most of his jokes land like expired Xanax.
Even Pascal, the supposed villain, feels more like a moody Reddit user than a threat. He’s the first person to experience “time collapse,” and now he’s gone homicidal — because apparently, knowing the future turns you into a stab-happy philosopher with a hoodie addiction.
These people have all the depth of a pharmaceutical warning label. “May cause dizziness, confusion, and poor decision-making.” Yep, that checks out.
The Horror: Premonition Edition
The movie wants to be psychological horror — you know, the kind where paranoia builds and fate feels inescapable. Instead, it’s just jump scares, hallucinations, and people running through hallways that all look like the same hallway.
There’s blood, sure. People choke, get stabbed, and gas leaks fill the air like a low-budget Resident Evil. But the kills are so lazily shot and telegraphed that even the Grim Reaper would be yawning.
The supposed tension of “seeing your own death” is completely wasted. Instead of dread, we get endless scenes of characters staring into the middle distance while whispering things like “I’ve seen this before.” No kidding. We all have. It’s called déjà vu, and it was scarier the last time I forgot where I put my keys.
The Dialogue: Written by a Fortune Cookie Factory on Strike
If bad horror dialogue were an Olympic sport, Tell Me How I Die would take home gold. Every line sounds like it was assembled by an AI trained on mid-2000s teen dramas.
Some highlights include:
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“You’re not remembering the past… you’re remembering the future!”
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“We’re not dead yet!” (Thanks for the update, genius.)
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“This isn’t déjà vu. This is death.” (Cool tagline, terrible delivery.)
The film tries to sound smart, but it’s like watching a cat try to solve Sudoku. You almost respect the effort, but mostly you just feel sad.
The Direction: Death by Flashlight
Director D.J. Viola clearly loves his horror tropes: flashing lights, creepy corridors, and slow zooms on people whispering “something’s not right.” The problem is, none of it adds up to atmosphere. It’s like he copied the Aesthetic of Suspensesection from Wikipedia but skipped the part about pacing and logic.
Every scene looks like it’s lit by a single LED flashlight, which I assume was also the film’s entire lighting budget. There’s fog, snow, and lots of staring, but no real fear. It’s as if someone tried to make Inception but accidentally filmed an escape room tutorial.
The Plot Twist: You Can See It Coming, Unfortunately
The twist is that the drug doesn’t show the future — it creates it. The visions are self-fulfilling prophecies. Meaning: you die because you saw how you die.
That’s deep, right? Not really. It’s the same gimmick Final Destination pulled off with better stunts and more irony. Here, it’s just characters talking themselves into death like a group of philosophy majors trapped in a snowstorm.
When Anna figures it out, it’s supposed to be empowering. Instead, it’s confusing and kind of hilarious. She jumps off a roof, lands in a snowbank, and somehow survives because… plot armor? Then she injects herself with the drug, which I guess is what passes for character growth.
The Ending: I Remember Regretting This
The final scene shows Anna and Den escaping while Pascal — our brooding villain — watches from the roof as everything burns. It’s ambiguous, dramatic, and completely pointless. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a shrug.
No one learns anything, the drug still exists, and the audience is left “remembering the future” of not recommending this movie to anyone ever again.
The Real Horror: It Thinks It’s Smart
The worst thing about Tell Me How I Die isn’t that it’s bad — it’s that it thinks it’s profound. It throws around words like “temporal memory,” “non-linear perception,” and “cumulative cognitive distortion” as if you won’t notice it’s all nonsense. It’s like being lectured about fate by someone who failed basic algebra.
This movie desperately wants to be Predestination or The Butterfly Effect. Instead, it’s The Hangover Part 4: Experimental Drug Edition.
Final Thoughts: Tell Me Why I Watched This
In the end, Tell Me How I Die is less a horror film and more a cautionary tale — not about experimental drugs, but about screenwriting. It’s full of ideas that sound cool in a trailer but fall apart under the weight of logic, pacing, and sanity.
If you want to experience déjà vu, just watch any random Syfy movie instead. You’ll get the same amount of death, better effects, and probably a more coherent script.
Verdict:
⭐️½ out of 5.
Side effects include confusion, regret, and uncontrollable laughter. Consult your doctor before viewing.
