A few things I legitimately do not understand about the Canadian indie thriller Death Do Us Part:
• whether the scenes I scoffed at were supposed to elicit that response;
• if its real-life married leads — who also share credit as the film’s writers, producers and executive producers — realize they made every character patently odious;
• and how someone simultaneously can be a producer and an executive producer.
Those real-life married leads portray an about-to-be-wedded couple: the seriously uptight Kennedy (Julia Benson, née Anderson, Chupacabra vs. the Alamo) and, purely from a sexual standpoint, the seriously lucky Ryan (Peter Benson, Dead Rising: Watchtower). With each bringing one bestie and one family member, they rent a lake house overnight for a joint-gender stag party.
The six immediately are put off by the dead birds coating the porch, not to mention the creepy caretaker (Dave Collette, Intercessor: Another Rock ’n’ Roll Nightmare); viewers are more apt to be put off by the snobbish and/or self-indulgent behavior of the sextet, especially Ryan’s perpetual frat buddy, Chet (Kyle Cassie, Lost Boys: The Tribe), who near-exclusively says things like this for the movie’s entirety: “Chicks: If they didn’t have tits, we’d throw rocks at ’em.” (Unfortunately, on-the-set glimpses of Cassie on the DVD’s making-of featurette suggest he’s not far removed from his character.)
You’ll want to hurl objects toward the bunch, regardless of organs. Chet’s asshole embodiment aside, Kennedy is a cold-hearted bitch, while Ryan is a contemptible cad who happens to be having an affair with his fiancée’s sister (Christine Chatelain, Final Destination), this trip included! He takes her from behind against a tree while on an afternoon excursion through the woods; unbeknownst to them, their animalistic act is witnessed by Kennedy’s clingy, needy BFF (Emilie Ullerup, Leprechaun: Origins), who also manages to observe Ryan scuffle with his ex-con cousin (Benjamin Ayres, Dead Before Dawn) over some so-far-secret criminal shenanigans.
For their own reasons, they’re all hateful — and I typically quite admire Ullerup’s and Lady Benson’s work — so it comes as a relief when someone gets around to axing them up. The film could be classified as a slasher (albeit a rather tame one) or a mystery (albeit an easily solved one) if feature-debuting director Nicholas Humphries grasped the material in order to guide it either way. As is, Death Do Us Part is merely a bunch of dot-to-dot clichés of the peeps-in-peril thriller, complete with the elbow-nudging “C’mon, it’s one night! What’s the worst that can happen?” You know the kind: no power, no phone, no car ignition, no imagination … and no need to subject yourself to this one. —Rod Lott
In Florida, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere you go: Families are decorating their trees on the front lawn (huh?); Phyllis Diller is on the tube, shootin’ the shit with Merv; and 
