Álvaro Fernández Armero

(In French, On Cable TV, June 2021) The base level of horror is the monster killing characters. Most of the terrible horror movies stop there, with no theme and no other point except staging elaborate death sequences. The next level up is horror as cheap morality play, with people having done bad things being punished (usually through elaborate death sequences —it’s not that much of a step-up). At times, The Art of Dying does feel like that: morality play (bad things happen to bad people) fused with a dying revelation. That’s dull enough by itself, and then you get into the style of the film that now seems quite dated (and copied from other Hollywood horror films of the period). To its credit, The Art of Dying is not quite as bad as many other horror films and does have some style to distinguish it from so many lower-budgeted efforts. On the other hand, director Álvaro Fernández Armero can’t rein in pretentiousness and deliberate obfuscation. It’s not a pain to watch, but it’s occasionally a chore, and the final result isn’t necessarily worth it.