Journey by Frame

I did not like Kill List. Nor did I like Wheatley’s earlier feature Down Terrace. But although Kill List irritated me more, I recognize that it’s easily the superior and more interesting film. And despite the fact that I disliked both of Wheatley’s two feature films, I’ll undoubtedly check out his next one. There are bad “bad” movies, and there are interesting “bad” movies. Kill List is certainly in the latter category.

I feel like I’ve succeeded in explaining my problems with the film, but even though I’ve tried, I still cannot see what makes some people love it, which is something I find truly baffling. Nonetheless, I can definitely recommend these two pieces championing the film: Phil Coldiron’s review and Adam Nayman’s piece on the film (which includes an interview with Wheatley).

You can check out my review (at Spectrum Culture) here. An excerpt:

You want to root for a director like Ben Wheatley. He makes films using relatively minuscule budgets but infuses them with enough style that you’d never know the difference. His playfulness toward genre demonstrates a deep knowledge of film history and a respect for the conventions he bends and reshapes. But after modest yet enthusiastic attention for 2009′s Down Terrace and his latest film Kill List, there’s something rather disappointing about his work up to this point. Though different, these two films are united by a style that now feels like Wheatley’s signature, a documentary-like realism that becomes prismatically shattered through elliptical editing in the form of frequent jump cuts. This stylistic approach tends to confuse the drab with the realistic and the vague and the provocatively suggestive, and because of this, it’s hard not to see the divisive, love-it-or-hate-it reactions to Kill List as indicative of some fundamental problems in Wheatley’s approach, drawing some viewers in to its implied depths while leaving others wholly exiled in indifferent ambivalence.