Vincent Must Die

Vincent Must Die (Vincent doit mourir) is a 2023 French-Belgian satirical black comedy thriller film, directed by Stéphan Castang in his feature-length directorial debut.

Plot
Vincent is a graphic designer in Lyon who finds that everyone, starting with his coworkers but soon expanding out into the wider community, suddenly wants to kill him for no obvious reason. He eventually meets Margaux, a waitress who seems to be the only person not out to kill Vincent. Later when he tries to drive away with her, he hears of a plague on the radio, and sees a pile of cars with people who have gotten out and try to kill each other.

Release
The film premiered in the Critics' Week program at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. It was also invited at the 28th Busan International Film Festival in 'World Cinema' section and was screened on 7 October 2023.

It was theatrically released in France on 15 November 2023 by Capricci Films.

Critical response
Damon Wise of Deadline Hollywood reviewed the film positively, writing that "for all its deadpan humor — an altercation by an open sewer goes exactly the way you think/hope it might — Vincent Must Die is a really rather thoughtful film about the minefield of microaggressions that await us all. You can read the set-up as a metaphor for office politics, and the rest of it as allegory for the internecine nature of social media, where the mildest of opinions can ruin lives and reputations. Most of all, though, it is a joyfully absurdist tale of everyday alienation writ large. If Samuel Beckett had scripted Shaun of the Dead, it might have looked something like this."

Fabien Lemercier of Cineuropa wrote that "careering along at top speed and punctuated by fights which are all the more hellish for the fact the individuals involved don't have a liking for fights and they break out in the most unseemly of places (notably a septic tank), Vincent Must Die injects much needed dark humour (flirting with slapstick) into a razor-sharp, pre-apocalyptic societal portrait (based on an incredibly rich script whose underlayers come courtesy of Mathieu Naert). Carried by the formidable talent of its lead actor, and wonderfully enveloped by Manu Dacosse's photography and John Kaced's music, the film sucks the viewer into its many twists and turns, releasing enough in its uncompromising wake to make us reflect upon the state of the modern world. It's a highly promising prototype from an exciting new generation of French filmmakers who cite Carpenter and Romero among their sources of inspiration."

Christian Zilko of IndieWire was more dismissive, grading the film B− and opining that "Castang and screenwriter Mathieu Naert seem to tease us with the multitude of exciting paths that the film could go down before ultimately choosing the least interesting one. Instead of continuing with the dark comedy or fleshing out the mythology of The Sentinel, they take the darkest route and leave us with something that begins to resemble a generic zombie movie by the end. The natural response to the first few dozen attempts on Vincent's life is righteous indignation at the poor man's mistreatment. But after an hour and a half, it's fair to wonder if the possessed mob is onto something."

Accolades
At the 2023 Fantasia Film Festival, the film received a special mention from the Cheval Noir award jury.