The role of the grim reaper isn’t an easy one, and the Grim Reaper himself knows it all too well. He’s getting on his years, and is now looking to train his daughter to become the new Grim Reaper. She is a young girl who is obsessed with her own life, and isn’t looking forward to becoming a reaper. She just wants to be like the cool girls in school, the Banshees. But, being the daughter of the Reaper, she will eventually have to keep the scales of life and death balanced, and the Reaper is intent on making her uphold her duties, or endure a terrible grounding.
Athena Baumeister is hilarious and fantastic as the young Reaper who spends more time on her phone, arguing with her tentacled boyfriend and fawning over the banshees with her friend (a welcome walk on role from Disney alum Allisyn Ashley Arm) than she does aiming for a future as the Grim Reaper. When her dad sends her out in to the world to begin bringing souls to the after life, the young Reaper may not be interested in her duties. In fact, as the world around her continues with eliminating those fated to die in horrific and untimely manners, the young reaper is on the phone oblivious to her task. Baumeister lends this character a real enthusiasm and charm.
And though the character is a flake and self-involved, she’s often very funny, and keeps the film afloat with her sharp delivery of one-liners, and her chemistry with on-screen father John Paul Ouvrier, who also offers a few laughs as the deadpan Grim Reaper. His response to her many excuses and arguments are priceless. Director Peter Dukes really does flesh out this concept in such a small time frame, and once we view the consequences of the young reaper’s slacking off on the job, it’s a gruesome and clever way to end a day in the life of a teenage grim reaper, as she lives and learns. A teenager is a teenager, after all. Even in the supernatural realm.