This Is Your Death is a 2017 American satirical drama film directed by Giancarlo Esposito and written by Kenny Yakkel and Noah Pink. The film stars Josh Duhamel, Famke Janssen, Giancarlo Esposito, Sarah Wayne Callies, and Caitlin Fitzgerald.
After a tragic accident on a The Bachelor-esque reality show leads a runner-up to kill the bachelor then herself, the network decides to create a reality show in which people kill themselves on live television in exchange for large sums of money given to their families.
Tropes:
- Artistic License – Law: A very big one, apparently. The network's lawyer tells them they can't be sued if there's no proof they helped or forced the suicide, which might mean to literally hold the gun for someone to kill themselves, because, in truth, they have basically done both: They provide weapons and settings of various types for the people to die (electrified, shoot themselves, drown, etc.) and promise large sums of money to their very in need family if they agree to kill themselves on their show. In real life, there have been cases of people who have been prosecuted for doing way less.
- Caught on Tape: When the woman who commits suicide inside the car turns the engine off and attempts to get out, Adam pushes her back in and starts the engine again so she dies. However, he doesn't realize that the cameras inside the car are still recording and capture the murder. Sylvia copies the footage and then deletes it. At the end of the movie, she hands the recording over to the FBI.
- Deadly Game: Well, show. The death show has nothing but people being given the ways to off themselves while the audience watches.
- Driven to Suicide:
- The runner up of "Marry a Millionaire". After losing, she freaks out and kills the said millionaire, attempts to kill the show winner before putting the gun in her mouth and shooting herself.
- The people on the show are poor and have a hard-living situation, they kill themselves so their families will receive the money. the very first one kills herself to earn her daughter U$300,000.
- Electrified Bathtub: The first person to kill themselves on the show does so by dropping a stereo into her bathtub after confessing to the murder of her husband.
- Harakiri: One of the participants in the season finale kills himself by committing harakiri.
- If It Bleeds, It Leads: The trailer implies that the death of the runner up gave a large amount of attention to them, so they decide to milk all they can from.
- Immoral Reality Show: The network decides to create a reality show in which people kill themselves on live television in exchange for large sums of money given to their families.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: The first person to kill herself in the show is a young good looking woman who undresses and steps in a tub, all done sensually, but then throws a stereo on the tub and dies by electrocution.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Adam starts This Is Your Death with noble—if morally dubious—aims: as a means of providing meaning to the deaths of those who wish to commit suicide, and to make the audience re-evaluate what their life actually means, with the added goal of shocking television out of its complacency. However, he quickly capitulates to the changes the network forces on him in order to keep the show on the air; changes that make the program more of a game show, thereby diluting his original message. As the show becomes more popular, he is seduced by the fame and wealth it brings him. However, he jumps off the slope when he murders a woman who changes her mind partway through her suicide—despite the fact contestants are supposed to be able to pull out at any time—because her living would damage the ratings and go against the 'point' he believes he is making.
- Loan Shark: The neighborhood loan shark actually turns down Mason's request for a loan, because he knows Mason is a decent man and respects him, and because he knows that Mason will never be able to repay him.
- Metafictional Title: The film is about a television program titled This Is Your Death where people commit suicide live on air.
- Mid-Suicide Regret: The woman who gasses herself in a car has second thoughts and turns the engine off after the car is taken off stage. However, Adam decides that she is not allowed to change her mind and turns the engine back on.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After Mason decides that he cannot go through with his suicide, he calls out the studio audience, and everyone watching the show, decrying then for supporting a program that encourages people to commit suicide and disguises itself as force for change, when all it really is human death as entertainment.
- Snuff Film: In-universe, the people go on the show to kill themselves live on TV.
