Finished watching Kill List late last night and it kept for up for most of the night, not because it was so scary but that ending. Did I miss any clues? I knew something was up. When Fiona took Jay's (Neil Maskell) blood and marked their home. The blood pact later on etc. etc. I knew something cultisch was coming up. But I never knew how. Did I miss any other clues? The ending is bizarre too. Right before the reveal I knew what was under the blanket but it still shocked me.

Anyway, the performances are all great. I liked the slow-burn pace. The movie also kept me on the edge of my seat. The gore is brutal, when he kills the LIBRARIAN (IT MUST BE IN CAPS) with that hammer, I was like DAMN SON take a beer and calm the f down. The ending was sudden but I was alright with it. It left at the right point and made me want to think about it. I also believe this is a great movie to watch a second time with the clues you might be seeing the second round.

I do believe it is essential to go into Kill List without knowing what it is about. Don't read the back of the dvd cover, don't look shit up on the internet. Go in as blind as possible. I found out about this one because of a Shockwaves Podcast. And glad I watched it blind. Loved it! (Still a bit confused though)

6.5/10

Kill List is one of the those movies that follows hitmen, they have a job and they have to kill people. I found it interesting that instead of glorifying the killings and without giving into too much stereotypes, the movie actually focused on more real interactions between the two hitmen and how like us they have conflicts, family problems and a sense of morality and that even though to them it's just like a job, they still are killing people and they have to live with that.


The folly of this is the third act of this movie which turns the structure of this whole "go and kill people without fucking up" into "survive". Which lended the film the tense finale that it had built up.

I liked it enough to recommend watching this with a few friends. Very well made and well-acted, you could understand and see the dilemmas, fear, anger and frustration that the characters were going through. I like that there is a category of movies following morally angry hitmen who die because of their own actions, teaching us that though this job was giving them a lot of easy money, once you step in there is only one way to get out: Die.

Watch more movies like this:
In Bruges
Death Sentence
Bunohan: Return to Murder

Sometimes God's love can be hard to swallow.

A super slice of sub-urban horror crafted by Ben Wheatley, Kill List blends a number of classic British films but still remains very much its own beast. And what a beast it is. Part hit-man thriller and part Wicker Man pagan horror, plot spins hit-man for hire Jay (Neil Maskell) out of his troubled domestic funk, into a world of pain and misery. Taking on a job, he, along with his partner Gal (Michael Smiley), is given a list of names for them to track and terminate. The people and the places they confront are the darkest kind, which brings out Jay's black heart as well. All this while lurking around the edges of the frame is something mysterious, something that will bring Jay to his destiny.

There is a rawness to Kill List that strikes hard, a sort of real life documentary feel that marries up with the black material to chill the bones. It's proud of its grimness, even what humour exists within just feels like damaged goods. The sound and camera work gleefully add to the unsettling atmosphere, tactics which help alleviate the feeling that we are once again watching a formulaic British thriller with ideas above its station. But then the curve ball arrives and hits you on the head, bringing dizzy spells and some delirium. Which builds to a finale that will either leave you breathless or angry, but either way Kill List will not be ignored.

Impressively performed by the cast, mounted with skill by Wheatley, this is a dark hearted British treasure that hopefully in time will be afforded the praise it deserves. 8/10

I have a real soft spot for folk horror. Whether on film or in the work of writers like M R James, the idea that the incomprehensible, the utterly terrifying, could be lurking in plain sight is one that I find endlessly fascinating. It isn't the big-budget horrors that tend to investigate this side of things for a variety of reasons, which is perhaps just as well—originals like Ben Wheatley are more suited to wrapping their own sensibilities around the core concepts.

What _Kill List_ does exceptionally well is build tension, hardly letting up from the opening seconds. Jay and Gal are ex-soldiers turned hitmen who haven't been working in several months because of an unspecified disaster on a previous job. Jay's home life is chaotic—the money has run out and he's emotionally scarred, struggling to connect with his wife and son. When he has Gal and his girlfriend over for dinner, a chain begins that really takes a turn for the macabre.

The plot is kept at arm's length throughout, Wheatley prioritising atmosphere and cranking up the dread as every minute passes. Given a new assignment, the people involved become stranger and stranger. Gal seems confused and alarmed but Jay sails through almost serenely, happily fulfilling his mandate. In the final third of the film, it tips over into full-throated horror, something that many critics didn't like. Personally, I loved it—the arcaneness of it, the foreshadowing, the nods to earlier giants of the genre.

The final revelation thrilled rather than confused me, and if you like your horror embedded in the countryside, in rituals and signs, then I can't recommend _Kill List_ enough. Few films are bold enough to suggest so explicitly the inherent strangeness in day-to-day life as well as the terrifying nature of the familiar when inverted.

A bit tough to understand on the first watch, yet gripping and a compelling portrayal of inner demons.

But seriously, are the British the only film-makers who can make a decent crime/thriller film??