Out of Death

There is a specific kind of silence that only exists in a movie shot in nine days during a global pandemic. It’s not the silence of tension or artistic restraint; it’s the silence of a production trying desperately not to move the camera too much because they don't have the crew to reset the lighting. When I sat down to watch Out of Death (2021), I was lured in by that strange, morbid curiosity that defines the current streaming era: the "Geezer Teaser." You know the ones—the movies where a legendary star’s face takes up 70% of the poster, but they spend most of the runtime sitting in a chair or talking on a radio.

I watched this on my laptop while my neighbor’s leaf blower provided a more consistent soundtrack than the actual score, and honestly, the roar of the Husqvarna 350BT added a level of mechanical urgency the film was sorely lacking.

The Forest of Low Expectations

The setup is classic B-movie territory. Shannon Mathers (Jaime King, known for Sin City and My Bloody Valentine) is deep in the woods of Georgia to scatter her father’s ashes. It’s a somber, personal moment that is immediately interrupted by her witnessing a drug deal involving a corrupt cop. From there, it’s a sprint—or more accurately, a brisk walk—through the trees. Shannon is pursued by a pair of crooked officers who want to tie up loose ends, and she eventually bumps into Jack Harris (Bruce Willis), a retired sheriff who just happened to be looking for some peace and quiet.

Jaime King actually puts in the work here. You can tell she’s trying to ground the character in real fear and physical exhaustion, despite the script giving her very little to work with beyond "run that way." On the other side of the coin, we have the villains, played by Lala Kent (of Vanderpump Rules fame) and Tyler Jon Olson. Lala Kent brings a certain "I’m in a soap opera but I’m also very angry" energy that feels entirely disconnected from the rest of the film, but in a way that’s almost entertaining. She plays a corrupt cop like she’s trying to win a fight at a reunion special, and in a movie this stagnant, I’ll take any flavor I can get.

The Willis Paradox

We have to talk about Bruce Willis. In the context of 2021, we were all seeing these movies pop up on Redbox and VOD every few weeks. It wasn't until later that the world learned about his diagnosis with aphasia, which puts a much more somber lens on his performance here. Watching it now, his Jack Harris feels like a ghost haunting his own movie. He’s largely stationary, his lines are short and punchy, and his interactions with Jaime King feel like they were filmed in a completely different week—because they probably were.

Director Mike Burns, who was a music supervisor before jumping into the director's chair, has the unenviable task of making a forest look like a deathtrap on a shoestring budget. The cinematography has that distinct, blown-out "high-contrast" look that makes everything look like a mid-range real estate listing from 2014. There’s no sense of geography; characters seem to be ten feet apart in one shot and a mile away in the next. The "action" consists of people pointing guns at each other and talking about what they might do, which is the hallmark of a production that couldn't afford a full stunt team.

Nine Days in the Dirt

The most fascinating thing about Out of Death isn’t on the screen; it’s the production itself. This was one of the first films to head into production after the initial 2020 lockdowns. They had nine days. Nine. To put that in perspective, a standard episode of a network TV drama usually takes eight days. Attempting to film a feature-length action thriller in nine days is less like filmmaking and more like a high-stakes scavenger hunt.

Because of the time constraints and Bruce Willis's health, Mike Burns reportedly had to compress Willis's entire shooting schedule into a single day. This is why the movie feels so fractured. You start to notice the tricks: the over-the-shoulder shots where it’s clearly a body double, the scenes where characters are talking to someone who isn't in the frame, and the heavy reliance on radio chatter to move the plot. It’s a fascinating look at the "Emmett/Furla" production machine (run by producer Randall Emmett), which mastered the art of churning out content by leveraging the names of aging icons for international distribution rights.

If you’re looking for a tight, high-stakes thriller, Out of Death is going to leave you wandering in the woods. It’s a film defined by its limitations—budgetary, temporal, and physical. However, if you are a student of the "Streaming Era" or a completionist of the Bruce Willis filmography, there is a weird, academic value in seeing how these movies are stitched together. It’s a relic of a very specific moment in Hollywood where the demand for "content" met the reality of a global shutdown. Jaime King deserves a better forest, and we all deserved a better send-off for Bruce, but as a 95-minute curiosity, it’s a harmless, if dull, diversion.