They Picked on the Wrong Guy
Flynn (Derek Magyar) and his extended family are a bunch of ruthless robbers and killers who are fearless in who they steal from and kill. But that all changes when they pick on the wrong guy and the girl he is travelling with as they discover to their cost.
Spoiler alert: I am not even going to attempt to review "No One Lives" without giving plot details away because trying to do so would be to make this sound weak which it certainly isn't. What I will say if you want to watch "No One Lives" without knowing specifics this is a graphic horror movie with lashing of blood and some scenes which might have appealed to Jigsaw from the "Saw" movies.
Now that synopsis for "No One Lives" sounds quite simple with a gang of killers having to deal with a superior killer than them. And to be honest a huge chunk of what "No One Lives" is about is the graphic horror from faces being pushed into fans to handcuffs pushed through the soft skin under the jaw. I will be honest and say there were times I was watching just to see how graphic the violence was going to get and it seems director Ryûhei Kitamura planned this as there are various scenes which toy with you, putting you on edge ready for some thing sick to happen such as when someone looks through the peep hole in a door.
But whilst the graphic nature of the horror dominates "No One Lives", and that includes some non violent scenes which still end up visually arresting, there is more to the movie than just lashings of blood. We have a girl who was being kept hostage by the wrong guy and as such we have this back story surrounding the slaughter of some high school kids with one of them going missing. Why keep this girl hostage? I won't say but it gives the movie another element as she ends up playing one side off against the other.
What I will also say is that "No One Lives" actually has a triple bill of psychos starting with Derek Magyar as Flynn, making him that dangerous punk bad guy who is a bully who inevitably meets his bloody demise. Then you have Adelaide Clemens as Emma, are hostage whose manipulative nature as she plays the bad guys against her hostage taker makes her evil especially the smile which comes across her face when someone falls victim to a grizzly death. But then you have Luke Evans as the man with no name who is the hostage taker and there is genuinely something quite terrifying when Evans stares directly at the camera, especially when he is covered in congealing blood. But Evans also gives his psycho an almost playful nature with some dead pan delivery of amusing lines which actually makes him almost likeable in a strange way.
What this all boils down to is that "No One Lives" is a graphic, semi disturbing, ultra violent horror movie which despite being simple has various layers. The thing is that whilst it isn't a great horror movie it is the sort which if you were channel surfing late one night and came across it you would probably watch it a second and maybe even a third time.
