Kill List (2011)
What It's About: We’ve only got two weeks to go before Doctor Who returns and we can all start arguing about it again, so I thought hey, why not review a couple of movies by Ben Wheatley, who directed the first two episodes of the new season? Naturally, when I think of people who should be involved in family television, the director/co-writer of two of the mind-screwiest, most unpleasant horror movies in recent memory is the first one that comes to mind.
Kill List, directed by Wheatley and co-written by Wheatley and frequent screenwriting collaborator Amy Jump, has a fairly simple setup. Jay is a hitman who’s been out of work for the last eight months after he and his partner Gal botched a job in Kiev. He’s out of money, tensions are rising between Jay and his wife Shel, and their son Sam is suffering for it. When Gal comes to visit and tells Jay of a new client willing to hire the two of them, Jay has no choice but to accept the offer. Gal is rightfully a bit creeped when the client requires that the contract be signed in Jay’s blood, but Jay doesn’t seem to think much of this, and they get down to business. As they work their way down the list of victims -- a priest, a librarian and an M.P., in addition to a few pro bono killings along the way -- it becomes more and more apparent that something much stranger is going on here than either of them signed up for.
Why You Should Watch It: Kill List is hard to classify. It starts out as a domestic drama, changes into an unglamorous crime thriller -- sort of the opposite of a Guy Ritchie movie -- and finally moves along into supernatural horror without ever contradicting its own atmosphere or tone. I’ve heard it compared often to The Wicker Man, though I suspect that’s just because when mainstream critics review horror movies, they tend to have small reference pools since they don’t like horror, and certain developments toward the end of Kill List make for an easy visual comparison. Thematically, it has much more in common with Angel Heart, which I should review here sometime since it's on Netflix. It’s also shot through with a dark thread of Arthurian legend. King Arthur is a recurring theme, and the story itself was inspired by the trials Arthur’s knights had to undertake in order to prove themselves worthy of a place at the Round Table. Neither, I think, is the fact that the knights of Arthurian myth were essentially a bunch of violent thugs who just happened to be better than average at killing lost on Wheatley.
Kill List is a tense movie, sometimes difficult to watch, often so bleak and humorless that it might alienate some viewers. It’s never sarcastic or witty, never pokes fun at itself or at anything else. None of the characters are “badass,” they’re just violent. Said violence is brief but unflinchingly gruesome and unstylized (one scene in particular will turn even strong stomachs). The soundtrack is suitably droning, the imagery stark and Kubrick-influenced. It’s what critics would call a “slow boil,” as opposed to "a rip-roaring entertainment ride." When it finally does erupt into outright horror at the end, it’s nightmarish (which is to say dream-like) and seriously scary. Definitely not a “fun” movie, but a very well-made one. I actually recommend watching this twice -- there’s a lot of expertly-handled foreshadowing early on that you’ll catch the second time around, and one bit that makes the ending all the more dreadful in retrospect.
Available On: Netflix.
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