31 Nights of Horror: Night Ten, "Kill List"

Whether he hits or misses, Ben Wheatley is one of the most fascinating voices in British cinema, and Kill List is his biggest, squarest hit--maybe not commercially (that, I believe, would be last year’s Free Fire) but unquestionably so on an artistic front. Among the many reasons I consider it not only one of the all-around best horror movies I’ve seen, but also one of my favorite movies period, the most divisive has nothing to do with its graphic depictions of violence, but with its total lack of exposition.

    For the sake of clarity, here are the basics: Kill List follows a disgraced hitman persuaded to take on a new assignment by his fellow hitman. Both of them are former soldiers affected by an mission in Kiev that went awry, although the nature of the job and the screw-up are never addressed. The movie follows a pretty conventional three-act structure separated by title cards a la The Shining and Reservoir Dogs, peripheral influences on the movie’s, although its psychological vice-grip is arguably stronger than both thanks to some intense performances and, again, a complete lack of explanatory dialogue. The cliche “feels like you’re figuring it out with them” bit is, for once, the truth.

    The conscious segmentation of the three-arc structure isn’t for show, either: from the moment the movie opens on two parents engaged in a full-blown screaming match to its firelit conclusion, Kill List is a cerebral examination of violence--whether as catharsis; as consequence; as a social construct; as a fact of human existence, it’s a concept the movie can’t stop turning over and over in its big, bloody hands, constantly reevaluating its meaning in the world through the lens of two characters immersed in it, sometimes by choice and sometimes by force. It seems to be the common thread among the movies of Ben Wheatley, sometimes played for laughs (Down Terrace, Free Fire) and sometimes for more ambiguous ends (A Field in England, Sightseers), but not since Kill List has he treated it with such sobering, razor-sharp gravity, creating in the process both his most compelling work and a masterpiece of horror.

So watch it already!

-Brian L.