Kill List

Let’s take all the poetics and hypnotic qualities out of Drive. All that’s left is graphic violence and darkness. Now multiply these two things by five and you’ll get Kill List, a British film with stark visuals. The growing concern about occult fanaticism that unfolds in front of our tough-guy duo works in the film, but I do not consider its climax to be very surprising or impressive. Perhaps because I’ve seen something VERY similar, but much more appalling and perverted somewhere else – in A Serbian Film – not to mention a more powerful, goose-bumps-inducing ecstasy brought on by the escape through an underground tunnel in Them. (17/01/2012)

I liked Kill List in the details, but the overall impression is mixed… For instance, the initial dinner (fantastically oppressive), the second murder (after Drive, the second film this year where a hammer is really cool), the chase in the tunnels (the only really scary scene) and the music (or rather the various unpleasant noises and sounds), all that is great. The individual bits are really nice, but I couldn’t put anything together with the package as a whole. And the ending was very disappointing, it blends two ways how to ruin a climax: lack of surprise and not answering some questions the answer to which I would like to know. The film made me happy several times with how it’s made and its perfect atmosphere… but in the end it didn’t tell me anything. 3*+ (27/12/2011)

Excellent. Cival's parallel with Eyes Wide Shut doesn’t falter much (an internally incomplete character attracted to the obscure community), and I would also add Wickerman (pagan cult), and praise the film for its almost "veristic" approach to leading actors and working with mise-en-scène and editing. It's sick, it's derailed, it's raw, it's absorbing... dirty dumplings, somewhere between absentee sex, ubiquitous death, and fleeting love. (19/04/2013)

Good intentions and several thrilling scenes wrapped into a messy narration that fails to draw in the viewer and in the end leaves them with more questions than they would like. I appreciate the unorthodox approach vis-a-vis the characters, the work with the music and the unexpected bursts of violence, but the story doesn’t make any sense. Even A Serbian Film, which was more gratuitous and morally reprehensible, left me with a better impression. (22/10/2019)