Die Hard on a boat? One of Steven Seagal’s somewhat classier, higher-budget movies from the first Bush era? The motion picture which single-handedly set the stage for Under Siege 2: Dark Territory costarring Eric Bogosian? Yes, 1992’s Andrew Davis-directed actioner Under Siege is all of these and more. A one-time staple during the VHS era of home entertainment, the testosterone-drenched film has not inspired a terrific amount of detailed critical attention or fan speculation in the 22 years since its successful release. Or so one might think. One Tumblr user, however, has apparently given the film a great deal of attention, focusing particularly on the many characters who lose their lives over the course of Under Siege’s 103-minute running time.
Since mid-October, And the Man Next To You: The Tragic Backstory of Everyone Killed in Under Siege has been offering its readers mock-serious, paragraph-long epitaphs for each of the film’s fatalities, written in the grim style of a dime novel. “Hollywood says every hitman has a heart of gold,” states one entry. “They kill and kill until they get that one special target.” The author has been working backwards through the film, denoting each kill with a corresponding time code. The Tumblr starts with the final moments of Seagal’s character, Casey Ryback, years after the events of the film. “He’s more scars than skin,” goes his obituary. “The faces of those he’s killed are long gone, too.”
