Movie Review: Kill List
Generating plenty of buzz on the genre festival circuit, Kill List is a coiled British thriller with undertones so sinister that few will be prepared for the bestial, grim places it takes the lead characters – a duo of hired hitmen doing a job for a clandestine group out to murder a priest, a librarian, and a secret third man in an increasingly grotesque descent into primordial violence.
Jay (Neil Maskell) and Gal (Michael Smiley) are tenuous friends putting on a front of domestic normalcy with Jay’s nuclear family and Gal’s gothy new girlfriend (Emma Fryer) while gearing up for their shadowy new job following an unspoken botched gig in Kiev that has mentally affected Jay, making him swear off the criminal life until he is coerced back in by his intense Irish friend Gal.
A talky first half hour will throw many horror-thriller fans for a loop as they attempt to catch the heavily-accented dialogue surrounding a fraught dinner party at Jay’s home which winds up in a vicious argument between the hosts and later finds Gal’s date drawing some sort of coded symbol on the mirror in the family bathroom (a subliminal scene like so many in the picture that make you question what is occurring). Patience with the plot’s careful unfolding will reward as the movie picks up the pace once the job is under way.
What seems at first like it will be another British gangster flick with the usual stylistic trappings swiftly diverts into a somber and terrifying series of revelations that sickens even the hardened anti-heroes – one particularly unflinching scene involves a hammer taken to an unfortunate accomplice in a ring of atrocities only inferred by an off-camera videotape. To go into further detail would do a disservice to the rare motion picture that finds ways to surprise even the most seasoned veteran fans of horror stories.
Neil Maskell (left) and Michael Smiley in “Kill List.” © 2011 – Warp X/Rook Films (Kill List) Ltd.
Both England and Australia are producing innovative high-concept thrillers (The Descent, Wolf Creek, Eden Lake to name just a few) that feature adult characters in very realistic, troubling peril. Kill List employs the naturalism of British drama to lull the viewer into a state of comfort which is upended once we start processing the queasy plot (like: “what must they have seen on that videotape to become so animalistic?”) and finally end up in a pulse-quickening fight for survival in a series of underground tunnels before the final shocking outcome.
Given a cursory release at a few festivals and now appearing for a limited time On Demand, Kill List has gathered praise in the UK (including high rankings on many Best of 2011 lists). Too bad most of us will debut it on a TV screen since this would be a fascinating film to watch with an audience as everyone’s gasps and rising discomfort would be to this creepy gem’s great benefit.
Gregory Fichter
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