Kill List

[kevinknapman]

Back from the UK premiere as part of Frightfest.
It's quite some film and I'm not sure I can entirely get my head around what I've just seen on first viewing. It's in parts, disturbing, gripping and, oddly, often very funny. The shifts in tone adding to the slightly odd and unsettling air of the film. Add to that one of the best uses of sound editing and music and you have a film that manages to be unnerving even in it's seemingly normal earlier moments of domesticity. From then on though the film gets increasingly unhinged and bizarre before an out there climax.

The acting is great. Neil Maskell and Michael Smiley making a great double act. Much of the humour comes from their interaction in the many anonymous motels they find themselves in. Maskell also impresses the darker and less amusing the film gets. MyAnna Buring is also very good as Maskell's wife.

Yes it is often very violent. One particularly gruesome and shocking scene actually got a huge round of applause (you've gotta love a hardcore horror crowd). So if you find the thought of a hammer being used to crush various body parts off-putting, you may want to give this a miss.

I have a few reservations. I'm not sure the climax is entirely successful and it is a film that will leave you with more questions than answers. But it's still and bold and arresting piece of work and one that I look forward to catching again at some point.

[superhero]

Hammer on various body parts? They did something similar in the Divide too.... most be the "in-thing" for horror films this year...

[soonforgotten]

The Kill List hammer scene is nothing like anything in The Divide. It's properly brutal.

I actually found the sound to be pretty annoying. I found a lot of the dialogue lost beneath background noise. The sounds of basic activities while the actors were talking were way too loud and the dialogue too low. Maskell could've worked on his diction too, as I struggled to understand him the most but had no problem with Buring, for example.

I'm pondering giving this another view because it's so confounding. I think I know what it is getting at but I'd like to watch it again while looking for any hints of where it ends up.

[claire]

so who is going to see this tonight?

[Beate]

Me.

[claire]

Oh I might be able to put a face to the name then beate.

[Sunny Saver]

We thought this was quite bad. As we were leaving the screening, I was just about to say 'what was the point of that' and the two actors and director were walking in and the Irish guy said 'look at them all running away'...

I was waiting and waiting for the frightening bits. OH who doesn't like scary films said he was bored.

But we hadn't see Beate and OH, PXC, ejwrank and funthing for ages, so they were the highlight of our evening.

[superhero]

Thank god you agree SS, I thought I was on another planet with all the great reviews for this! This film is simply awful 1/10

[Sunny Saver]

Thank god you agree SS, I thought I was on another planet with all the great reviews for this! This film is simply awful 1/10

OH gave it 1/10 too! I haven't scored it yet, as I haven't stopped laughing. I think it was a trick film, ie all that hype about being scary... gottya it's not.

Felt like walking out halfway through, but stayed till the sh*tter end wait to be scared.

I wish I hadn't given up my Batman tickets for tonight now.

[Beate]

Well this was SHIT.