An odd, and oddly effective, mix of hit-man thriller and cult horror, KILL LIST is one of the most talked-about British horrors films in recent years. Imagine my surprise, then, to see it premiering on television a scant year after release, and of course I jumped at the chance to catch up with what is by all accounts a controversial little movie.
For the most part, KILL LIST works. It unsettles and creeps you out courtesy of lots of foreboding, ominous sequences (accompanied by music which is a little too overdone at times) punctuated by moments of stark and shocking violence. Writer/director Ben Wheatley does good to build the sense of mystery, keeping his character backgrounds shady and throwing in random clues that make little sense at the time but help build towards the feeling of something big as the climax approaches. It's also one of the nastiest mainstream films I've seen in a while, with one scene involving a hammer taking screen violence to a whole new level.
Sad, then, that the ending of this film is such a disappointment, an ambiguous tie-up that seems shoehorned in purely to provide a few more exploitative shocks instead of making any kind of sense whatsoever. The mystery is left just that, a mystery, and at times I was infuriated at the lack of resolution. The film also veers away from the modern day realism it has built beforehand to hark back to the Hammer Horror days of yesteryear. Not that I have a problem with Hammer films – I love them, but in their own time and quaint-ish setting. The all-too-familiar horror tropes of the climax just feel overdone, coincidentally almost exactly the same problem I had with another recent watch, THE LAST EXORCISM.
The cast acquit themselves well with the script, for the most part, and there's a level of kitchen sink-style authenticity to much of the dialogue; also some natural, unforced humour which offsets all the nastiness. Neil Maskell is very good when his lead character is asked to do the more disturbing things, although I never quite bought him as the family man he's shown to be at the outset. Michael Smiley is equally as good as Maskell's buddy and colleague, and the film's central pairing works very well indeed. Original British horror cinema, with life and style all of its own (not merely following Hollywood trends), has stalled somewhat in the last decade, but with the likes of KILL LIST we could be in for something of a renaissance
