Kill List (2011)
     Horror films are currently big business in Hollywood, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one that seemed interested in scaring you. The Twilight films are so concerned with their central romance, they don't have any interest in scaring their audience. The Saw films (and their offspring) just want to gross you out, like little kids showing you a mouthful of chewed food. Right now, a lot of the films that carry all the familiar indicators of horror seem safe and conventional, like an amusement park ride where we know something will pop up in the dark every ten minutes. It can be fun, but it isn't scary.
     Kill List, which is not conventional, is scary. Yet for much of its running time, it doesn't seem like a horror film. A description of the plot reads like a British kitchen-sink realism film crossed with a mob picture. Jay (Neil Maskell) is an ex-soldier with a wife and son. He hasn't had a job in eight months and the money he's put away is running out. He's drinking too much, he's having shouting matches with his wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) every night, and his anger is getting out of control. When his best friend Gal (Michael Smiley) comes to him with a job, it's not only a way to make money, it's a way for Jay to keep his sanity. It's here that we get the first twist in our story: Jay & Gal are hit men and the job they're hired to do is to kill three men. Still, we seem to be on fairly standard ground, there are a lot of films about hit men and the jobs they do. But it becomes obvious that this isn't a standard job when their employer insists on sealing the contract in blood. And then there's the fact that their first assignment, a priest, thanks them before dying. Even for killers like Jay & Gal, this is a dark road and it only gets darker.
     I don't want to talk too much about the plot here. There are already several reviews that give away parts of the story just by referencing some of the films antecedents. That isn't to say you've seen this film before, you haven't. Just that like many films, it takes ideas from other ones and uses them to very different effect. It's all about the destination, and Kill List arrives in a very dark place that is far away from the safe and conventional Hollywood horror playing at the multiplexes.
     Make no mistake, this is a brutal film. Jay becomes increasingly dangerous as the job goes on, inflicting pain with a fervor that troubles even Gal. And the violence he commits feels real in a way that the cartoonish gore of so much modern horror doesn't. As Jay, Neil Marskell does excellent work playing an increasingly unhinged man who becomes so wrapped up in his work, he can't see the danger he's walking into. As his friend Gal, Michael Smiley brings a fine touch to a fellow who seems like he'd be a great mate, as long as you overlooked his work.
    There is a distinct feeling of unease running throughout Kill List. Scenes go to black abruptly and dialogue from one scene overlays footage from the next, creating disturbing juxtapositions. Director/writer Ben Wheatley uses sound to great advantage, filling the soundtrack with harsh, discordant white noise that seems ready to swallow the characters (and the viewers) whole. The film feels like a nightmare and Jay is implored at several points to wake up. The horror is that by the time he does, it's already much too late.