Death Has No Master – Review | Fantastic Fest (3/5)

DEATH HAS NO MASTER is a revenge thriller set in Venezuela (org. title: La muerte no tiene dueño), and it gets real dark. Asia Argento stars, playing a character that you’ll both understand and easily get furious with. The movie will get its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest 2026. Read our full Death Has No Master movie review here!

DEATH HAS NO MASTER gets its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest, which I expect will be a very good fit. This revenge thriller from Venezuela (org. title: La muerte no tiene dueño) has a focus on colonial privilege, which may not be quite as black and white as you’d expect. Especially in a country where the law doesn’t really apply to anyone, and it’s more about survival of the fittest.

Rarely has the saying “Kill or be killed” been more accurate. Then again, it’s difficult to know for sure whether anyone would’ve ever tried to harm you if you had never made the first move. There’s a lot of unknowns in this storyline, but the results and consequences are painted in blood before it’s all over. The runtime of 1 hour and 46 minutes may seem a little long, but it works.

Continue reading our Death Has No Master movie review below.

Revenge and justice in Venezuela

When watching Death Has No Master, you’ll quickly come to realize that there isn’t much room for justice in Venezuela. Human life doesn’t have much value, and the law isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. People look out for each other, but only for as long as it makes sense to them. Or, obviously, if they love someone.

Revenge, on the other hand, now that’s something that everyone can understand.

That’s what Caro (Asia Argento) is about to discover as she returns to her father’s colonial cacao plantation in Venezuela. For decades, Caro has been living in Italy, but after the death of her father, she has inherited the plantation and returns to sell it. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.

As soon as she arrives, Caro realizes that the mansion is now occupied by Sonia. Caro knows Sonia as a former employee of her father, and Sonia welcomes her back home. Also, Caro recognizes that this is the home of both Sonia and her young son, Maiko, which is why she agrees to let them stay there.

Well, for now, anyway.

Don’t mess with the locals

Soon, Caro will discover that Sonia is subletting rooms to other tenants, which makes her feel like a guest in her own home. Of course, being away from a place for decades has a way of making it feel unfamiliar. As soon as Caro tries to explain that the property must be sold, which means Sonia has to find a new place to live, things go sideways.

And fast.

As the most natural and obvious next move, Caro turns to the local police station to report Sonia and her son as squatters in the house she now legally owns. However, this is a very close-knit community, which Sonia and her son are part of. Caro is not. As a result, they are not in a hurry to intervene. Feeling out of “reasonable” options, Caro contacts someone who has a way with “alternative” ways of persuasion.

If things were sour and dark before, it’s nothing compared to the escalation about to be endured by everyone at the plantation.

With Asia Argento (Dark Glasses) as Caro, we get someone who never shies away from the darker sides of the human psyche. Playing opposite her as Sonia, we have newcomer Dogreika Tovar, who delivers a heartfelt and fierce portrayal of a woman who has nowhere else to go. Had these two roles not been played with such intensity, Death Has No Master would never have worked.

With these two in the lead roles, it works insanely well.

Death Has No Master screens at Fantastic Fest 2026

Death Has No Master was written and directed by Jorge Thielen Armand (La Soledad, Fortitude), who is a Venezuelan-Canadian filmmaker. As such, he obviously has a lot of important issues he wants to get across. As I see it, he succeeds. There’s the focus on colonizer issues, which are still very relevant, despite what we might think in the Western World.

I love how character-driven the storyline is, as this allows us as viewers to relate directly to their experiences. Not in a theoretical way, but seeing the actual consequences.

Death Has No Master (org. title: La Muerte No Tiene Dueño) is the third feature film from filmmaker Jorge Thielen Armand. This movie premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival Directors’ Fortnight. I admit that I expected the runtime to feel way too long. Surprisingly, these characters draw you in, so it never felt too slow or long. It only felt like the ending would be brutal, which it most certainly is. With grotesquely brutal realism!

Death Has No Master gets its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest 2026.

Details

Director: Jorge Thielen Armand
Writer: Jorge Thielen Armand
Cast: Asia Argento, Dogreika Tovar, Jorge Thielen Hedderich, Dogreika Tovar, Yermain Sequera, Arturo Rodríguez