Writer(s): Wheatley, and Amy Jump
Starring: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Harry Simpson, and Michael Smiley
I had heard a lot of positive things about Kill List—which ended up being its first red flag. More often than not, critics, who are generally paid to critique more mainstream fare, and I are not anywhere near a common wavelength. I will say as more “extreme” cinema seems to be heading toward approval of the masses, this line seems to be shrinking a little bit, and all the popular critics are watching things they probably would have avoided twenty years ago, but the general critique still stands.
However, that would not have, in and of itself, lead me to postpone a screening of Kill List for as long as I have (a little over a year now, if I recall correctly). No, what really turned me off were the constant comparisons to A Serbian Film, which is one of the most abhorrent pieces of trash I have ever seen (and as of this writing, the only film I’ve ever scored a “zero”). That whole project just feels like two middle school students filming the most vile things they could concoct, simply to gross one another out; only, the end result is childish and laughably bad. Of course, it defends itself by claiming to be a social commentary about how the citizens of Serbia are being treated. But I highly doubt they’re being forced to pay to watch amateurish rubble passing itself off as higher art every day of their lives, so they should at least be thankful for that.
Much to my delight, it only took me a couple of minutes to realize that comparison is completely misguided; Kill List is competently written, and actually contains a story! And what a story it is, as it patiently unfolds: Jay is a hot-tempered loser who hasn’t had a job in eight months. This creates (understandable) friction between him and his wife, Shel, especially since they have a ten-year-old son, Sam.
One night, Jay and Shel invite over Jay’s good friend Gal for an evening of alcohol-induced fun. He brings his shady, creepy girlfriend Fiona with him. The night gets off to an awful start after Jay loses his temper, and storms upstairs; Shel follows him and they have a screaming match so bad, that it’s Gal who has to put their child to bed. But after a few glasses of wine, all returns to normal, with Shel and Jay joking and laughing with Gal and Fiona. Then Fiona does something strange, sneaking away to carve a half-anarchy symbol into the back of their bathroom mirror, then stopping to take some bloodied tissue that Jay used to mop up his blood after cutting himself earlier in the day.
As the night wears on, we find the true reason Jay invited his friend over—they’re hitmen getting back into the field, and they’re about to learn the three people that they have been assigned to kill…and this is where I’ll be dropping my readers off, because from this point on, the more you learn on your own, the better. All I will give you, to entice those with similar bloodlust to my own, is that the murders start off relatively tame, but steadily increase in brutality—this also serves as fair warning to the squeamish.
Director Ben Wheatley proves himself adept at wrenching suspense and tension from monotonous activities: for example, I was getting nervous before Jay and Gal entered the home of an intended victim, my hands clamming up as if I was the one tasked with carrying out the murder. He also succeeds by adding weird little scenes here and there; such as the one where Fiona carves the symbol into the back of the mirror. These scenes tell you that something isn’t quite right, without resorting to cheap scare tactics, and it becomes successful in evoking a near-constant state of dread.
I will admit that, just from hearing comparisons to Serbian Film, and noticing that there were only minor similarities throughout (a broke man who will do almost anything for cash), I knew there had to be a scene that tied everything together—and that is how I deduced exactly what would happen in the ending. It definitely feels a lot less forced here, but it’s still far from the revelation the filmmakers intended. Actually, the whole movie takes kind of a dive in the last fifteen minutes, or so, with a kind of change in tone that many have commented feels like it belongs in an entirely different movie. I didn’t think it was out of place so much as just completely unnecessary—the more I dwelled on it, the less and less I liked it. It certainly doesn’t ruin the movie, nor does it come close, but it definitely lessens the impact that a more “original” shock ending might have had (so does the cute scene that foreshadows the ending; it’s like Wheatley felt the need to include everything he learned in film school, regardless of its effect on the overall movie).
I can definitely lay to rest the notion that this is even anywhere near the same ballpark as A Serbian Film (which is a very, very good thing), but I’ll also be crossing off the idea that this is a great horror film. It’s a pretty good one, and worthy of your time, but it’s done in by a pretty lame ending, and, for a film that seems to want to be so extreme, a startling adherence to straightforward storytelling—with the possible exception of the ending, everything else is pretty predictable and just feels like the plot is moving from point A to point B.
RECAP: It’s not nearly as bad as the comparisons to A Serbian Film (one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen) would lead you to expect; quite the contrary, director Ben Wheatley actually shows some competence in the writing department, slowly building his story up to some truly heinous scenes of violence. Then he decides to run on autopilot, coming up with an ending that not only fails to be as revelatory as he was hoping, but that undoes a lot of the mystery and tension he proved so adept at wringing from his story in the earlier parts. Still, it manages to be fascinating, has some pretty good performances (not to mention the stunningly beautiful MyAnna Buring in a main role), and enough gore to satisfy bloodhounds. Worth a watch, but well short of any sort of classic.
RATING: 6/10
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