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.

Vampire Killers
Directed by Phil Claydon
Starring Mathew Horne, James Corden, MyAnna Buring, Paul McGann, Silvia Colloca
Weinstein Company
Release date: December 29, 2009

Hundreds of years ago vampires descended on the small hamlet of Cragwich. The Head Vampire, Carmilla (Silvia Colloca), placed a curse on Cragwich so that all its women-folk would turn into vampires (more than that, lesbian vampires) on their 18th birthday. Holidaying friends Jimmy (Mathew Horne) and Fletch (James Corden) have entered a world of trouble. And babes.

I will not even try and pretend that I had any kind of creative or cultural curiosities about this movie going in to it; it’s about sexy vampires. However, I can claim that it featured one of my favourite comedy duos of recent years. Here in the UK, Mathew Horne (The Catherine Tate Show) and James Corden (History Boys and the upcoming Gulliver’s Travels) have just wrapped up the hugely popular — and very funny — but sadly short lived sitcom, Gavin and Stacey. Horne stars as Gavin, a sensible, softly spoken, hopeless romantic who lives with his parents. Corden (who also serves as co-writer) backs him up as his overweight but always eating, loyal, fun best friend, Smithy, the real star of the show. Horne is straight-laced, cautious, dependable. Corden is loud, carefree and crude. This buddy act they continued in their sketch comedy show, Horne and Corden, and they reprise those roles again in British comedy horror, Vampire Killers.