Kill List Review

Review of Kill List (2011) by screenqueeen: 👎 2/5

hooptober 12

i have been a real latecomer with Ben Wheatley movies and after finally having seen this after all i've heard.... i'm ok with having slept on it. a frequently dull, slapdash pastiche of rotating genres that doesn't make the constants of its characters stand out any differently. the triptych of familial drama, gruesome action, and cult folk horror pop out more on paper than how Wheatley has executed it, a much more muted and desaturated experience than how these elements sound together. the direction is muted and desaturated too, with nothing really beyond Jay's character than unacknowledged ptsd hammered down as hard as one of his victims. learning that the dialogue was mostly unscripted shows, i think, how there wasn't much to work with in his character that Maskell put more effort into selling the performance of someone realized as a two-dimensional victim turned serial abuser. its almost too real, but there isn't anything else there.

the only 2 women in this are infinitely more interesting and relatable but are sidelined ruthlessly early on and not in a way that suggests a conscious stylistic choice set within the perspective of people like Jay or Gal. Wheatley presents these characters with contempt and possibly pity, driven in by its final act. its the middle portion of this film that kills it with its insistent focus on watching Jay satiate a bloodlust that lurks beneath his skin when with his family, but his frequent outbursts and abuse towards Shel already communicate that. as painful as it is to watch it is far more effective than following two best friends kill people on a list for money needed for a jacuzzi.