Kill List

I happen to enjoy movies that don't give you everything through every shot and make sure that every viewer sees all the cues. Kill List is one of those movies. I also happen to enjoy movies that make me feel uncomfortable and invaded. Kill List is also one of those movies.

You can read the other reviews and such to get the plot line and all of that. This is not a movie where you get all the details of what the hell is going on. It's very intimate, close shots, overlapping audio, use of sound to create a very uncomfortable atmosphere. The movie is about human psychology and plays on psychology to get you to feel a certain way. There are no jumps and scare tactics. But this film is brutal and unforgiving.

I loved it.

Kill List is a really creepy and uncomfortable film. Wheatley unflinchingly shows us bleak and souless parts of Britain and the horror really comes from the realism and not knowing where the film might go next and what you might see. The 2 leads are excellent, coming off as vulnerable even though they are both powerful and deadly forces in their own right. There are many comparisons to be made to other movies but all would spoil it so I would say Kill List is best watched with no prior knowledge or expectation.

An odd, and oddly effective, mix of hit-man thriller and cult horror, KILL LIST is one of the most talked-about British horrors films in recent years. Imagine my surprise, then, to see it premiering on television a scant year after release, and of course I jumped at the chance to catch up with what is by all accounts a controversial little movie.

For the most part, KILL LIST works. It unsettles and creeps you out courtesy of lots of foreboding, ominous sequences (accompanied by music which is a little too overdone at times) punctuated by moments of stark and shocking violence. Writer/director Ben Wheatley does good to build the sense of mystery, keeping his character backgrounds shady and throwing in random clues that make little sense at the time but help build towards the feeling of something big as the climax approaches. It's also one of the nastiest mainstream films I've seen in a while, with one scene involving a hammer taking screen violence to a whole new level.

Sad, then, that the ending of this film is such a disappointment, an ambiguous tie-up that seems shoehorned in purely to provide a few more exploitative shocks instead of making any kind of sense whatsoever. The mystery is left just that, a mystery, and at times I was infuriated at the lack of resolution. The film also veers away from the modern day realism it has built beforehand to hark back to the Hammer Horror days of yesteryear. Not that I have a problem with Hammer films – I love them, but in their own time and quaint-ish setting. The all-too-familiar horror tropes of the climax just feel overdone, coincidentally almost exactly the same problem I had with another recent watch, THE LAST EXORCISM.

The cast acquit themselves well with the script, for the most part, and there's a level of kitchen sink-style authenticity to much of the dialogue; also some natural, unforced humour which offsets all the nastiness. Neil Maskell is very good when his lead character is asked to do the more disturbing things, although I never quite bought him as the family man he's shown to be at the outset. Michael Smiley is equally as good as Maskell's buddy and colleague, and the film's central pairing works very well indeed. Original British horror cinema, with life and style all of its own (not merely following Hollywood trends), has stalled somewhat in the last decade, but with the likes of KILL LIST we could be in for something of a renaissance

Very surprised that the rating for this film has balanced out at 6.4 after twelve years (and that this will only be review no. 310). I don't even like Horror films but rated Kill List at 7-8/10 and fail to see how anyone could turn their nose up to this nasty, gritty little piece of work (many of the most recent reviews are a mystifying 1-3/10). It's psychological horror, rather than gore - although the 'hammer scene' is brutal and by all accounts still a production mystery - and, if the story elements weren't already disturbing enough, the brooding, menacing tension is amplified further by the haunting whistling, original sound design and jump editing style, which adds an intentionally rough edge to an already unpleasant mix. The cast are mostly strong, Neil Maskell powers it through from the first scene and the look on Gal's face in the car when the pair realise exactly what they've got themselves into says it all.

The first few frames of this film had me concerned that i'd be watching one of those 'guns n geezers' films that have furnished the careers of Danny Dyer,Nick Love and the like, but these worries were quickly quelled as i found myself being drawn deeper and deeper into the world of these odd characters and their violent, unstable lives. There is an intensity to 'Kill List', similar to that felt when watching the 'funny how?' scene in Goodfella. The threat of violence hangs ever present throughout and i can honestly say, the film is one of the toughest viewing experiences i have ever had. Not only is the threat and intensity level turned up to number 11, the actual explosions of violence made me go light headed, one in particular. Overall, it's hard to argue against Kill List, yes it's overly violent, yes it's full of darkness and brimming malice, but it's succeeds as it sets out to. Bad things happen to bad people.