Kill List
(2011)
(WARNING: SOME SPOILERS) Ben Wheatley
appears to have swiftly become the new poster boy for British horror, thus
supplanting the undeservedly crowned regent Neil Marshall. Obviously, Wheatley
has a far more suitable name so that’s something. And, at first glance, he
appears to have artistic aspirations higher than the swathe of gore Marshall is
content to cut a path through. But for every area where I admired Wheatley’s
inventiveness and craft in Kill List, ultimately he left me feeling dissatisfied with the
result.
It's possible that I'm just not
sufficiently on board with horror movie tropes. It’s never been my preferred
genre, and the further the dial swings from suggestive to splatterific the less
engaged I become. At least, usually, you
can see the signs a mile off in terms of content. Kill List has the
air of arthouse to it, a film not obviously wearing its genre on its sleeve. As
a result, by the time I reached the climax, with its "What's the most
shocking reveal I can put in here?" the whole enterprise transformed into one that is distractingly manipulative and calculated (and, by that point, sadly inevitable). Maybe part of
this disappointment results from the lo-fi "Ken Loach horror"
suggestiveness of the opening sections leading me to expect something more
subtle and sinister.
In retrospect, it just seems that Wheatley
employs a wall-to-wall foreboding soundtrack for these scenes of domestic
strife with same lack of restraint seen in the ending. Jay (Neil Maskill),
unemployed for eight months, is getting grief from his wife Shel (MyAnna
Buring). He is reluctant to return to his role as a hitman (which he took on
after leaving the army) but his friend Gal (Michael Smiley) persuades him. But why
is Gal’s girlfriend Fiona carving an occult symbol on the back of Jay's bathroom
mirror and secreting a tissue containing Jay’s blood upon her person? Before
long the job begins, but grows more and more disturbing, including the
discovery of horrific activities by some of the targets, a peculiar resignation to their fates, and the apparent
recognition of Jay by one of them. Deciding to quit, they discover that it is
not so simple.
So many aspects appear to be inspired by the
likes of Rosemary's Baby and The Wicker Man (and various other
British horror fare, including Blood on Satan’s Claw) but instead of their
ambiguous unease Wheatley finally succumbs to rubbery intestines, machine guns
and OTT Satan worship; the pursuing hordes presumably sound like something out
of Invasion of the Body Snatchers for
no other reason than Wheatley though it would be cool. It’s quite apparent
that, tonally, Wheately is setting audiences up for the more disorientating
third act tone, but the lack of restraint on display and his succumbing to
hackneyed plot devices (the retreat to an isolated location) suggest it does all comes down to the “splatter
effect” pay-off (I should have seen the warning signs with the hammer incident,
however).
Which is fine, except that Wheatley has
sold the illusion that the film might be about something. What you realise is that he doesn’t really
care about his characters (which, ironically, diminishes the impact of the
ending); it becomes all about how clever and tricky the narrative construction is. Smiley makes Jay affable, but Maskell isn’t so far removed
from his zombified hit man in Utopia
(is he getting typecast?) There’s no resonance here other than the most
superficial (which neatly reflects the all-pervading soundtrack). All the
choices are, ultimately, very mannered and studied, from the verité handheld camera (all the better to make you feel like you’re there… but haven’t we seen that so an awful lot lately?) and drab – but cinemascope; this is an epic mundane landscape remember - cinematography to the use of title cards announcing the next victim.
I probably sound like I’m coming down hard
on the film, which is no doubt a consequence of the excessive hype its
received. There’s much here that is effective. Maskell and Smiley give outstanding
performances, and there's a sense of easy-going chemistry and natural improvisation
to their run-of-the-mill hit man duties. Individual elements of the sinister surround make you sit up and take notice (the initial carving on the back of the mirror,
the encounter with the “doctor” – I half expected Jay to sprout hair from his
cut hand!). In the end, though, the most creative elements aren’t enough to
overcome the more derivative and exploitative ones.
***
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