+ 1 (Plus One)
Directed by Dennis Iliadis
Screenplay by Bill Gullo; Story by Dennis Iliadis
Starring Rhys Wakefield, Logan Miller, and Ashley Hinshaw
IFC Midnight
Release Date: September 20, 2013
Running Time: 92 minutes

+ 1 (Plus One), the latest film from Greek director Dennis Iliadis (Hardcore), bases its plot around a pair of interesting questions: 1.) If you were given the chance to go back in time and rectify a terrible mistake, would you do so even though the previous outcome was the one meant to happen?; and 2.) How would you react to suddenly being confronted by a clone of yourself that has all of your memories but only up to a certain point in their life?

The first quandary is posed to David (Rhys Wakefield, The Purge), an aimless high school graduate whose college student girlfriend Jill (Ashley Hinshaw, Chronicle) feels that their relationship is going nowhere fast and David’s lack of future prospects is holding her back. These emotions are crystallized one afternoon when David mistakenly approaches Melanie (Natalie Hall, Pretty Little Liars) in the halls of the university believing at first that she’s Jill because the two of them look very much alike, but doesn’t reject Natalie when she kisses him in full view of the heartbroken Jill. With their romance in a free fall David and his friend Teddy (Logan Miller, Ultimate Spider-Man) decide to attend a massive blow-out being held at the home of local rich kid Angad (Rohan Kymel) that promises all manners of debauchery. Knowing that Jill will be at the party as well gives David the belief that he can still repair the damage he inflicted.

Kill List
Blu-ray | DVD
Directed by Ben Wheatley
Starring Neil Maskell, MyAnna Burning, Michael Smiley
Rook Films, X Warp, IFC Films, MPI Media Group
Release Date (US): August 14, 2012

Kill List came to the states with a lot hype behind it. The sophomore feature film outing for British director Ben Wheatley is inaccurately described as a horror movie, but it is really a crime movie with a bit of the occult thrown in for flavor.

I had to wait for the home video release of Kill List to see what all the hype was about, but unfortunately, I was still left wondering as the closing credit appeared. Kill List is by no means a bad movie, but there is nothing special about it either.

Kill List
DIRECTOR: Ben Wheatley
WRITER: Ben Wheatley, Amy Jump
STARRING: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Harry Simpson, Michael Smiley, Emma Fryer, Struan Rodger
IFC Films
RELEASE DATE: US: February 3, 2012 (limited), Available on VOD now; UK: DVD l Blu-ray

Sometimes filmmakers enjoy the art of implication, and sometimes they prefer to leave entire chunks of important information unshared, both allowing for an audience (or forcing them) to use their own creative juices to come to certain conclusions. The Coen brothers, for example, are quite renowned for this very thing at the end of their movies—though performed at a master-filmmaker level—but not even they always get away with it without facing some heavy scrutiny.

For me personally, I go into a movie expecting to be told a great story. And when information is purposely withheld from said story, I can become a tad irritable. Sometimes, after multiple days and much pondering, certain films that go this route can grow on me, whereas others will only infuriate me more. But when it comes to Kill List, I can’t honestly say which side I stand on at the moment.