Man, how do I talk about KILL LIST without
ruining it. I know! I'll put a SPOILER WARNING right up front. Okay, you've
been warned. Here goes:
This 2011 thriller from the UK shows up on
"best" horror lists, but you'll probably spend most of the running
time wondering what's so "horror" about it. That's what's up with the
early spoiler warning: even calling this movie a horror movie risks spoiling
the ending. I wish I could have gone in just thinking it was a straight up UK
gangster flick and have my mind totally blown. Still, my mind was totally
blown, so I guess the way I saw it was good enough.
Now that I'm writing about it I realize there
are hints early on as to what's to come. So, maybe that spoiler warning was a
little premature.
Anyway, KILL LIST, directed by Ben Wheatley,
stars Neil Maskell as a hit man who hasn't worked for a while as a result of
the unspecified disastrous nature of his previous job. This leads to tension at
home, where his wife (MyAnna Buring) is keen for him to get back to bringing
home the bacon. To this end, she invites Maskell's partner (Michael Smiley) and
his creepy girlfriend (Emma Fryer) over for dinner, in an attempt to have the
partner talk her husband back into working.
Ultimately, Maskell gets back on the killing
wagon, and accompanies Smiley on a trip to hunt down and execute three targets
on a kill list for a creepy client (Struan Rodger). I'm betraying my limited
vocabulary here by using the word "creepy" so often.
Here's where the spoiler warning probably
should have actually been: as they work through their targets they eventually
come upon a weird midnight ceremony featuring hooded figures, torches, chanting
and a human sacrifice. This is where things get crazy. They suddenly go from
hitmen to guys hunted by a crazy cult, and there's a particularly suspenseful,
frightening and incredibly well done chase sequence through a claustrophobic
underground tunnel with very little light. This sequence is worth the price of
admission alone, and the movie gets even crazier from there.
No comments:
Post a Comment