Cast your monstrous mind back to 2015… okay, are ya there? Remember that Angry Hank Rollins vampire joint He Never Died? Well, guess what; we are taking a look at a semi-sequel to that terror tale, but it’s been all gender-swaped, both in front of and behind the camera… but more on that in a bit) as I cast my eerie eyeballs on She Never Died!
Long story short, this entry focuses on the immortal Lacey (Olunike Adeliyi), a lone wolf with a major case of boredom with her never-ending existence. So what does she do to try and help her ennui? Why devouring the worst that humanity has to offer of course… which in turn causes her to battle her own demons in the process.
So how does this hold up to the first, admittedly excellent, chapter? Pretty damn well! End of review.
Alright, because you are surely setting on your couch literally begging for more of my wicked words I’m gonna let you have them! Writer Jason Krawczyk (who directed He Never Dies) and Director Audrey Cummings (who wrote the first installment) have delivered a pitch-perfect, at times brutal and darkly humorous, fright flick that manages to have the same flavor as it’s predecessor while offering plenty of new angles on the material.
Lacey, unlike her spiritual brother Jack (Rollins), doesn’t give a flying fuck about being human… or much of anything except feeding on criminals, but through all that Adeliyi makes the character fascinating to watch, which is no easy feat given how removed from a normal emotional existence Lacey is.
Also of note is Dalton Danby, who plays Lacey’s opposite number Terrance; the psychopath that delights in the torture of others. Adeliyi and Danby play well off from each other, and the dichotomy of their characters keep interest high even when the story moves away from our protagonist to focus a tad too long on subplots involving a variety of unsavory business (like human trafficking for example).
But even with that minor misstep, She Never Died is a perfect follow up to He Never Died, and features all of the vampire fun n’ games we came to love in the first go-around but with a nicely done tonal shift. I say get your putrid peepers on this one pronto horror hounds!
