Kill List – Review

A highly violent cross-genre affair, Kill List is at the very least absolutely wild. While I myself find it a bit more middle ground than some reviewers, the film is undeniably well crafted and a good blend of crime and horror. It is about unlikeable people doing bad things, and adds some truly unexpected results. Many reviews and trailers will ultimately have spoilers. This review will be light an into character setup only.

Eight months ago, there was 40 grand in hand, but today, it’s all gone and it doesn’t make sense! Though… not working a day for eight months also somewhat explains things. Criminal Jay (Maskell) and his girl Shel (Buring) scream at each other over money issues in front of their son.

Jay slinks off and gives himself as shave, but Shel lambasts him upon return for not getting most anything on their grocery shopping list. He calls her a miserable cow and looks for the door. Quite a man, quite a couple. She goes off to call her Swedish family, and in her native tongue Jay cannot understand her.

So, we have a criminal asshole and his family. What else? How about a dinner party! Gal (Smiley) and his girl Fiona (Fryer) roll over, and after chow the boys talk shop. Ultimately Jay declines a new job. The two men are ex-soldiers and current thugs for hire for the right jobs, or hits. Then it’s time for dessert.

So, this is regular life for criminals in between big jobs. The dinner party grows late, and Fiona does some weird shit with a mirror. The couples dance to nice tunes. Life is boring and tedious like this, right? Ah, fuck it, okay, so of course the men wind up taking the job and shit gets SUPER violent. But then honestly, it’s hard to talk about this movie since a lot of it is spoiler-y even in basic description.

This is both crime and horror like, say, From Dusk till Dawn, and it is genre bending a bit, but it is also not like that movie in plenty of ways, especially in being full of vampires, of which Kill List is not. It has a more grounded take on horror and it all fits together fairly well. It is very unsettling by the end frames.

I guess personally I found it lighter on the tension side since I truly didn’t like any of the characters, but they are well acted and the movie is also well shot. The characters are not meant to be liked. The presentation does all of its various bits well, and the violence is extreme and can catch the viewer off guard. The story is more than presented above, but to be fair it’s best to discover it in the film. The runtime is short, so if you are adventurous put Kill List on your own.