Kill List is the sophomore feature from Ben Wheatley, and focuses on the story of two hit men getting gradually and inexorably drawn into a situation they cannot escape. Jay (Neil Maskell) is a family man. Albeit one with a short fuse and a temper to match. We meet him having been out of work for 8 months. Financial woes and the resultant stress is putting strain on his marriage. The slow reveal of his line of work tells us he was in ‘private security’ (a contract killer) and he has not worked since an apparent botched job in Kiev. His partner Gal (Michael Smiley - who will no doubt be known to most as ‘Tyres’ in Simon Pegg’s Spaced series) comes to him with an offer of work. The eponymous Kill List of the title. Three hits, for a lot of money. They agree to do the job together and set about the task of assassinating the three targets. The film is then divided into corresponding segments: The Priest, The Librarian and The M.P.
Right from the start, Kill List cuts an unsettling tone. It reminds me of three great films in particular. For aspects of the story you can’t avoid thinking of The Wicker Man - provincial devil worshippers going mental; For the look and style of the movie, it brought to mind Shane Meadows’ excellent Dead Man’s Shoes - grimy, low budget bouts of ultraviolence, slap bang in the middle of mundane English settings; And finally Takashi Miike’s gloriously beserk Audition – in the sense that you think you’re watching a different kind of film, and gradually, every so often, small odd things start happening until you realise this movie is not heading in the direction you were thinking it was going. That’s not so say this film is derivative, but rather that it has a lot in common with three fantastic movies, not least the fact that it is an excellently effective piece of horror cinema.
If I have a small quibble, I would say that the violence is a tad gratuitous, or at least uncalled for. Too much modern horror relies upon bravura scenes of violence at the expense of genuine scares; creating a talking point in movies that are otherwise devoid of anything else to talk about (see: the Saw franchise, Hostel, Wrong Turn etc). In the wake of Hostel, torture scenes have become as gimmicky as an orchestral powerchord designed to make you jump out of your seat during a quiet moment. To that end, I felt some of the violence on show in Kill List was unnecessary because the movie already has the audience hooked and baited well before it’s graphic bloodshed. Kill List creates an uneasy, seedy, creepy atmosphere well before it kicks up a gear in the final third.
Admittedly things start at a slow pace. But it works. It’s building blocks for what lies ahead. The plot twists and turns at right angles, all the time heading toward a gobsmacking climax. When we get there, the ending does feel a little rushed. But WHAT an ending it is. Its speed and brevity compared to the rest of the film only heighten its impact, and to be honest if you stop to actually think about it for a second, you begin to realise that it’s utter nonsense. However you don’t have that time to think until well after the credits have rolled and by that stage, taking the movie as a whole, you should be well reconciled with the fact that this is a proper, genuine horror movie.
It won’t be to everyone’s taste, and the plot holes are gaping, but it’s so well handled that it ended up being highly effective. As a whole entity Kill List was a properly creepy and unsettling watch and for me this is exciting, interesting and crucial horror filmmaking.
IMDB: Kill List
