“They were bad people. They deserve to suffer.”
No one makes movies like Ben Wheatley. He has no regard for the conventions of whatever genre he’s nominally operating in; in fact, one might say he has active contempt for them. He doesn’t make horror movies, not exactly, but they are certainly horrific. The feeling of watching a Ben Wheatley movie is akin to experiencing a dream morph into a nightmare so gradually and assuredly that by the time you face the horror, it’s too late to stop it. Kill List is one of those nightmares. It is – sometimes sequentially, sometimes simultaneously – a stark family drama, a crime film, and a brutal, unsettling horror film.
For the first half hour or so of Kill List (which Wheatley co-wrote with Amy Jump), it would be understandable if you thought you were watching the wrong movie. There is tension in the marriage between Jay (Neil Maskell) and Shel (MyAnna Buring). They’re running out of money. Jay hasn’t worked in eight months, and complains of a nonexistent bad back. Things escalate during a dinner party. Jay sweeps the dishes off the table, and they get in a screaming argument right in front of their friend, Gal, and his new girlfriend, Fiona. Somehow, things get stranger.
Wheatley has a knack for montage; sometimes he cuts scenes short where other directors would keep them going. The dinner party turns to a fight, which turns to drinks, which turns to dancing. Fiona scratches a rune into the back of the bathroom mirror. Throughout all this, Gal brings up a job that he wants Jay to help him with. Jay is reluctant, but ultimately agrees: he needs the money. The job is to kill three people. This is how Kill List reveals that its two male leads are contract killers.
The portrayal of Jay and Gal is quietly remarkable, and Kill List subverts yet more cliches by eschewing typical movie hitman fashion like tailored suits and expensive shoes. The only time these two wear suits is when they’re checking into a hotel, masquerading as businessmen. Jay and Gal are just so…ordinary. Until Jay starts threatening a man for playing guitar at a restaurant. Maskell’s performance is a thing of beauty; he can play Jay the terrifying, enraged killer as well as Jay the family man, and one doesn’t cancel out the other.
These men have so compartmentalized their lives that their targets don’t even get names. We don’t even know what they did to deserve death. Title cards come up with names like The Priest and The Librarian. The kills are efficient, albeit strange. First the priest smiles at Jay and says “Thank you” before being shot in the head. Then the librarian thanks him, even as Jay is beating him to death with a hammer. Even Gal thinks Jay is going off the deep end, and it’s easy to see where he’s coming from.
When they go to check off the last name on the list – The M.P. – things take a turn into the macabre. This is where Kill List hits its crescendo, and only now, the movie over, can I fully appreciate just how much faith Wheatley has in his audience, and how much he demands of it. Kill List is a perfect example of how to start a story one way and end it in a radically different way. (Wheatley has been tapped to direct the Tomb Raider sequel, which now stands to be very interesting.)
The Pagan (?) cult that Jay and Gal find in the woods makes for a striking image. Several members are nude, all are wearing masks made of twigs, and one woman wears a blindfold made of thorns. Blood drips from her sockets. Jay is captured and forced to take part in a ritual, and I will not spoil the film’s horrific, sickening twist here. It’s okay that you know there’s a twist – you’ll never see it coming.
Kill List is a movie like few others, but it also has a director that’s like few others. Through movies like this and High-Rise, Wheatley has been cultivating a reputation, and carving a niche that seems to have room for only one occupant. Pulling off a movie like this is impressive, but I find myself wondering how he even thought of it. All serious fans of horror should take this film, and its director, seriously. In time, I think Ben Wheatley will be one of the genre’s defining voices.
10/1: Hellraiser / The Invitation
10/2: Splice / Banshee Chapter
10/3: Jennifer’s Body / Raw
10/4: Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist / Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
10/5: Kill List / A Field in England
10/6: Halloween II / Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/7: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge / A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
10/8: Ginger Snaps / Creep
10/9: Cube / Creep 2
10/10: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) / The Ritual
10/11: Hell House LLC / The Taking of Deborah Logan
10/12: Re-Animator / From Beyond
10/13: Beetlejuice / Sleepy Hollow
10/14: Idle Hands / The Lords of Salem
10/15: The Ring / Noroi: The Curse
10/16: I Know What You Did Last Summer / The Monster
10/17: Night of the Living Dead / Train to Busan
10/18: The Devil’s Backbone / Southbound
10/19: Event Horizon / Dreamcatcher
10/20: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari / The Bad Seed
10/21: Eyes Without a Face / Goodnight Mommy
10/22: The Strangers / The Strangers: Prey at Night
10/23: In the Mouth of Madness / The Void
10/24: The Amityville Horror / Honeymoon
10/25: Gerald’s Game / Emelie
10/26: The Monster Squad / Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
10/27: Veronica / Jacob’s Ladder
10/28: High Tension / You’re Next
10/29: The Innkeepers / Bug
10/30: The People Under the Stairs / Vampires
10/31: Saw / Saw II
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