Movie Review: TIME OF DEATH

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: July 11th, 2026 / 10:07 PM

TIME OF DEATH movie poster | ©2026 Vertical Entertainment

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Michael Kelly, Kevin Pollak, Dennis Haysbert, Mena Suvari, Jeff Kober, Noel G., Trevor Morgan, Joseph Cotton Smith, Kelen Coleman, Alex Solowicz, Keith Machekanyanga, David Ury, Sir Brodie, CJ Williams, Thomas Parobek
Writer: Jason Rosen
Director: Will Wernick
Distributor: Vertical Entertainment
Release Date: June 12, 2026 (VOD)

TIME OF DEATH has the good sense to cast the great but often-underused Michael Kelly as its protagonist. It also has the benefit of shooting at a real-world 100-year-old prison in West Virginia, which supplies plenty of unsettling atmosphere.

We meet Kelly’s character, Department of Corrections officer Frank Morley, just as he experiences a horrible, guilt-inducing personal tragedy.

Two years later, we’re at the Seneca Ridge Penitentiary, where Warden LaRue (Kevin Pollak) declares that declares inmate Ted Dowling (Keith Machekanyanga) has been granted a 48-hour weekend of freedom –which the warden says will start right now, in the middle of the rainy night.

This seems a little suspicious to both Ted and the guards, but a decree by the warden must be obeyed, so out Ted goes.

Meanwhile, Frank is back on the job, as well as on medication that should not be combined with alcohol (a caution Frank ignores). When the Department of Corrections gets a report of an inmate – that would be Ted – missing from Seneca, Frank sends his trainee Alan (Trevor Morgan) to investigate.

Alan finds troubling material, then winds up dead in his hotel room. So, Frank now burdened by this new fatality as well as what happened before, heads to Seneca himself. Frank’s sometimes girlfriend/prison doctor Alison Burrell (Mena Suvari) insists on accompanying him.

One good look around and Frank can tell the prison doesn’t pass code inspection and must be closed down. Warden LaRue doesn’t take this news well. There’s also something else going on that may be supernatural, human corruption, or a combination of both.

Directed by Will Wernick and written by Jason Rosen, TIME OF DEATH makes the most of its eerie surroundings and the disturbed nature of many of the prisoners. Kelly makes us take Frank seriously, so we lean in with what the character is doing.

But part of what makes a mystery successful is its resolution. TIME OF DEATH gives us one that raises more practical questions than it answers, especially around the issue of what certain characters expected to happen.

We also don’t get clarity on why Frank is having psychic flashes. For a while, we think we’ll be able to deduce this from either Frank himself or something about the prison, but by the end, we still don’t get much in the way of hints.

Pollak is pleasantly expansive, Suvari is sincere, and Dennis Haysbert is stalwart as the prison’s head of operations.

TIME OF DEATH is well-acted, good-looking, and keeps us engaged most of the way through, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

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