The Death That Awaits – review

Director: Richard J. Lee

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

The biggest spoiler would seem to be that this is a vampire film. The IMDb blurb says “A drifter searching for answers to a mystery from her past takes on a job looking after a sick teen who is undergoing a mysterious transformation her family will do anything to stop.” However, the poster (on Tubi) looks clearly either vampire or werewolf (at the transformation start).

More than this, although the V word is never used, it becomes evidently clear that the film is a vampire film very early on. The mystery is more around the drifter, Cassie (Katya Martín), and her past.

So it starts in a darkened house where husband, Reese (Ron Yuan, Night Hunter), is speaking in hush tones to his wife, Angela (Sharon Gardner), about her staying *there* with daughter Nina (Megan Lawless). We see a close low angle of Nina as she comes into the room, asking for mom, blood on her nails.

Cassie and Nina

Cassie is in a rideshare to a very out of the way house with no cell service. She answered an ad and is coming to be the companion to Nina and meets Angela at the house. Nina is ill, she is told, and suffers from night terrors. She is to be her companion through the day but leave and lock the house at night – Angela has promised Nina some autonomy, but she has been known to sleepwalk, hence locking. At night Cassie will use the guest cottage. The first night there is screaming and smashing coming from the main house. Cassie also sees the figure of a man, Jeremy (Cooper Devaney), who seems to glitch into her view – she says not now and he does vanish.

finding a stake

In the morning she enters the house and there has been some damage. She goes to see Nina and a chest falls from above, which Nina catches one-handed before it hits Cassie – in a show of strength. That day Nina has a Doctor’s appointment and her brother, Micah (Tim Gabriel) picks her up for it (Nina wearing dark glasses and covered against the sun). Later we hear that the Doctor is called Dr V (Paul Johansson, Berserker: Hell’s Warrior & Van Helsing) – the name being a tad unsubtle. Cassie cleans and repairs when Nina is out and finds binding ropes and a wooden stake (I said the genre was fairly obvious).

finding Jeremy's journal

So the girls become closer, with Cassie seeming to encourage rule breaking. Jeremy, it turns out, was a friend who had died. For some reason Cassie finds his journal in a secret cupboard in the guest cottage and, whilst answered at the end, this is a significant jolt in the storytelling at the time that feels strange and disjointed. However, it is clear that Cassie knows what is going on with Nina and, whilst the character has more than she is telling going on, it begs a question (unanswered) as to whether the disease of vampirism is a known thing in the world or if the protagonists only know because of personal exposure.

daylight attire

The lore is patchy and, in some areas, underexplored. Mirrors, for instance – we see Nina sat before a mirror and it glitches (a bit like Jeremy glitching into view). This could indicate something around vampiric perception – though she does not appear to be looking at it when it happens. Later she smashes a mirror with her head, off screen, as she couldn’t see herself in it. Sunlight can both weaken and hurt (hence there is an aversion to it) unless fed (it appears), where fire, staking and decapitation kill.

beat the V away

A bite turns (it is claimed) though Nina had bitten Micah without turning him before the start of the film. Nina has been to doctors most all her life, suggesting it is also a congenital condition perhaps. Dr V is trying to cure her by making her act human, forcing sunlight exposure daily, raising body temperature (in the shower), not eating meat (she mentions realising she has bitten the head of a rodent at night when out of control) and literally trying to beat the V out of her – this came across as commenting on real world extreme “cures” (read abuse) for things from sexuality to neurodiversity. It wasn’t perfectly clear but he mentions the danger of drinking the wrong blood and it seems drinking (or having put into the body) vampire blood fully awakens the condition.

Tim Gabriel as Micah

The film relies on the two lead actresses, and they have a chemistry enough to carry their sections. The family dynamics could have done with more expansion and character development – especially Micah, who kind of fell into a villain (and wannabe rapist) mode without enough development to make it anything less than a stereotype. The vampire condition could have done with more background too but overall this was a competent flick and, whilst not perfect, the filmmakers have plenty to build on moving forward. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.