The role of life and death

After years of separation, a group of comedian friends get an invitation to the house of a former buddy from the comedy pack. The host was the only one of their crew to have a real Hollywood success. He did what every comedian dreams of: he wrote a script that brought him a fortune. The comedians come to his forest mansion, and each of them has the same plan in his pocket: to carve out a role in the next film. Old resentments, jealousy and grievances come to the surface, and gloomy secrets come out already during dinner. As if that were not enough, a serial killer who knows no mercy is prowling the surrounding forest. Can people who live by making others laugh deal with the beast in human skin?

“The Role of Life and Death” is a brilliant comedy horror with elements of a thriller and a bloody satire on show business. It mixes absurd buddy comedy, slasher panic and sky-high suspense, and by the way, it's just terribly entertaining. This is a film about friendship put to the test, ambition brought to a slight febrile state. Most of all, however, “The Role of Life and Death” is a hilarious horror, a film astonishingly brutal and gruesomely ridiculous. There is also the nervous energy of comedic improvisation, and the comicism appearing where the characters would most like to preserve the remnants of dignity. It resembles a stand-up evening that is interrupted by a series of bloody murders.

Behind the film is the New York-based comedy group Simple Town, which brings its own slightly twisted world to the big screen after years of creating skits and live performances. Directed by Ian Faria, the screenplay was written by Samuel Lanier, who, along with Caroline Yost, Felipe Di Poi Tamargo and Will Niedmann, plays an overclocked version of himself. It's a feature-length debut built on the chemistry of people who apparently know their worst sides well enough to make a comedy out of them. One of the roles also starred Ivy Wolk, a comedian who has been appearing more and more often on the big screen for several years. It has already been seen in the Oscar-winning “Anora”, and recently in Ryan Murphy's latest series “Shreds”.