Kill List

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.

It's been a while since I've seen a film that both attracted and repulsed me. "Kill List" has managed to do just that.

It's a difficult film to describe. Suffice it to say, it's been tagged a horror film and that the "similar" films referenced in other reviews give too much away. Let me just attempt to give you some idea of what you might experience if you choose to take a chance and seek out this film.

Before I begin, it must be said that this is a British film, and some of the accents are thicker than the Great Grimpen Mire. Sit back, and let your ears adjust.

The first third of the film might give you the impression it's a family drama. It isn't.

The second third of the film might give you the impression that it's a crime drama. It isn't.

Then comes the final third. It will make you question everything you've seen up to that point and either infuriate you or cause you to manually lift your jaw off the sticky theatre floor. It's out there. Waaaay out there.

The film does a terrific job of building a mood and layering suspense with discomfort. It is an incredibly violent film, graphic in a way I haven't seen since Gasper Noes' "Irreversible." The violence is intrinsic to the film and to its protagonist, but that doesn't make it any easier to watch.

This film bothered me, and except for the extreme violence, I can't really explain why. It left me feeling uneasy and uncomfortable - but I couldn't stop watching. I have so many questions about what I just watched that I will probably watch it again – and I will probably still be bothered.

When's the last time you said that about a film that wasn't a documentary?

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I find reading the reviews on this film a testament to what a work of art it really is. It's an action thriller that takes a left turn that rivals Takashi Miike's Audition and becomes something you won't see coming. But what the reviews here actually reveal is that the film can be interpreted in so many different ways. I found myself arguing with friends on what my slant was.

This is the key to a worthwhile piece of art. It prompts debate and promotes thought and interpretation. The performances, direction, and script all add up to a wondrously whole work of art.

See it for yourself and derive your own conclusions.

Lodging itself eventually in the creepy-people-doing-creepy-things tradition of religious/occult horror films like The Wicker Man and Rosemary's Baby, director Ben Wheatley's hit-man horror flick Kill List comes on, initially, like a bad-boy bit of British Social realism.

It's rough around the edges, shaggy and idiosyncratically edited, with dialogue so unpolished and authentic-seeming that it's occasionally hard to decipher. It's filled with a handful of legitimately great performances by actors allowed to work improvisationally, seemingly, lending the first half of the film an incredibly charming unpredictability, a low-key volatility that had me bouncing back and forth between moments of disturbing darkness and happy familial pleasantries. Then it gets really crazy.

Jay and Gal are ex-army, estranged friends and partners in crime. Eight months after a disastrous (and mysterious) gig in Kiev, Jay's home life is disintegrating, and after a raucous dinner party with his ex-partner and his creepy new girlfriend he agrees to get back in the saddle and take a job. They're given a list - three targets - and soon they're settling back into a charmingly macabre groove, carousing "salesmen" on the road from town to town and target to target. But after an inadvertent discovery during a routine bit of hit-man work derails their plans, the pair realize they may be part of something much bigger - and much darker - than a back-room murder-for-hire.

Kill List a stunning piece of very smart genre filmmaking. Wheatley not-so-gently inserts chunks of spooky, disturbing horror into what's already a charmingly dark kitchen sink drama. It's this transition - that either a social realist framework can be twisted into a framework supporting high horror or that a horror film can work filled with improvisational dialogue and broody bits of working-class British anxiety - that makes the film such an immense, jarring pleasure.

Will it work for horror fans used to slick, post-'80s supernatural spookery? Will Ken Loach fans do with a little blood and forest horror? Who knows. For fans of both, it's a stunning - literally - hybrid, something completely unexpected, a real discovery. Kill List is a brilliant idea, brilliantly well executed.

Now here's a film you need to view several times, but even then once you're through, you'll find the bell hasn't chimed, that the penny won't drop, there are parts you can't cop, you can look down the list, but answers you won't find. That all said, it's a pleasure enjoying the torment, a dislikeable man who with guns likes to outlet, a torturous soul, kind of scores an own goal, as his past catches up, and to hell he is sent.

Comprising fine performances for a low budget flick, you'll wonder what on earth you've missed when you get to the end and try to reform what you've witnessed into a whole - which you probably won't, as the numbers are irregular and don't add up.