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| Ben Wheatley: Kill List (GB/DE/SE/AU 2011). Neil Maskell (Jay). |
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| Ben Wheatley: Kill List (GB/DE/SE/AU 2011). Neil Maskell (Jay). |
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| Ben Wheatley and Andy Starke at Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3025, 20 Nov 2025, Kinopalatsi, Helsinki. Photo: Juho Liukkonen. |
Country and year: UK / Germany / Sweden / Australia 2011
Producer(s): Claire Jones, Andy Starke
Director: Ben Wheatley
Writer: Amy Jump, Ben Wheatley
Cinematographer: Laurie Rose
Music: Jim Williams
Cast: Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley, MyAnna Buring, Emma Fryer, Harry Simpson, Stuart Rodger, Ben Crompton
Duration: 94 min
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Format: 4k DCP
Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025
In person: Ben Wheatley, Andy Starke, hosted by Matti Rämö.
Viewed at Kinopalatsi 1, Helsinki, 21 Nov 2025
NV 2025: "Nyt ensi kertaa Suomessa tuliteränä 4k-restaurointina nähtävä Kill List on brittimestari Ben Wheatleyn kansainvälinen läpimurto ja käyntikortti, joka lopulta raotti visionäärille ovia myös Hollywoodissa. Se on mykistävän kekseliäs lajityyppien risteytys, joka asemoituu viime vuosikymmenen uskaliaimpien ja omintakeisimpien euroelokuvien kapeaan kärkijoukkoon."
"Entinen sotilas Jay (Neil Maskell) listii työtoverinsa Galin (Michael Smiley) kanssa epäilyttäviä henkilöitä rahaa vastaan. Tuoreimmalle listalle on päätynyt tunteita herättävä hahmokaarti, kuten pedofiliasta epäilty pappi ja epäilyttäviin kuvioihin sotkeutunut kirjastonhoitaja. Keikka etenee kaikkea muuta kuin hallitusti."
"Ohjaaja-käsikirjoittaja Wheatleyn otteet osoittavat tyylikirjon täydellisen hallinnan. Verkkainen alku harhauttaa mielikuvalla askeettisesta kitchen sink -draamasta. Pian tiskirättikuvista sukelletaan sulavasti makaaberiin, koomiseen ja lopulta okkulttiin, pikimustan sielunmaiseman syövereihin. Samalla kumarretaan syvään brittikauhun suurimpien klassikoiden suuntaan."
"Kunkin aikakauden genre-elokuvien parhaimmiston tavoin Kill List ammentaa yhteiskunnallisen liikehdinnän orastavista siemenistä. Eskalaattoreina toimivat hoitamattomat väkivallan traumat, tyytymättömyys rakenteisiin ja esikaupunkielämän näköalattomuus."
"Notkean tavan yhdistää psykologista ja fyysistä kauhua voi nähdä myös edelläkävijyytenä. Vasta vuosia Kill Listin jälkeen virinneessä, taide-elokuvayleisöltä hyväksyntää hakevassa elevated horror -lajityypissä tavoitellaan yhä usein puolivillaisesti juuri sitä, missä Kill List osui napakymppiin jo lähes 15 vuotta sitten." NV 2025
NV 2025 COCKTAIL OF QUOTATIONS:
★★★★★
”A gut-wrenching chiller”
– -Jamie Graham, Total Film 21.7.2011
★★★★
”Dark, funny, disturbing”
– Kim Newman / Empire Magazine 28.7.2011
★★★★
”As far as British horror goes right now, Kill List is pretty much top of the range.”
– Peter Bradshaw / The Guardian 1.9.2011
”Brings a fresh mystery and bite to the hitman genre”
– John DeFore / The Hollywood Reporter 18.3.2011
”An effectively twisted piece of work”
– Andrew Barker / Variety 15.3.2011
”Jay (Neil Maskell), a freelance assassin running short of funds, is nagged by his wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) into taking on a new client. Jay and his partner Gal (Michael Smiley) accept a ’kill list’ of three successive targets. As Jay and Gal execute the commissions, it becomes apparent that the list is longer than it seems. —
As things proceed, the film gets deeper into the bizarre, as if Get Carter were successively rewritten by Harold Pinter and Dennis Wheatley. —
[Director Ben] Wheatley has a very British version of David Lynch’s knack for that disturbing twilight area which exists between the crime movie and the horror film.”
– Kim Newman / Empire Magazine 28.7.2011 - NV 2025 COCKTAIL OF QUOTATIONS
AA: Ben Wheatley's Kill List starts as a gangster movie and turns into a horror film.
Kill List is not a diverting genre pastiche. It channels authentic issues, a history of violence, especially in the figure of Jay (Neil Maskell). Jay is struggling with a post-traumatic stress disorder from a failed mission in Kiev.
Jay, his wife Shel, and partner Gal plus his girlfriend Fiona are freelancing operators in a murder syndicate. Jay and Gal are contract killers, and Shel and Fiona background figures.
Because of his trauma, Jay has become unable to function, and he is needled for this by Shel. During a family dinner, in which Gal and Fiona are guests, Jay's frustration reaches a boiling point. He goes berserk in a scene of marital explosion. His fits of rage are fearsome, and he loses self-control in senseless violence.
Jay and Gal's current appointment consists of a "kill list" of three murders which lead to increasing darkness. The first target, The Priest, takes us to paedophilia. The second one, The Librarian, introduces us to snuff videos, which horrify Jay so that he murders the entire production team in a bloodbath. The experience is too much for Jay & Gal, and they want to be released from the contract which was signed in blood. It is too late. There is no way out. They have to fulfill the third chapter, The MP. On the grounds of a Member of Parliament, occult rites with human sacrifices take place, and after the hit, Jay and Gal will be next.
The finale leads us to conspiracy territory, which Wheatley in his Q&A revealed to have been inspired by The Parallax View. He also told that "folk horror" was not generally discussed at the time the film was made. But clearly the occult rites in the last episodes evoke The Wicker Man. Wheatley told that the awareness of older religious worship still conducted in the woods has fascinated him since childhood.
The topic of "elevated horror" was evoked. I don't know what that is. The horror genre has been elevated since F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu.
But I know that Kill List is true cinema. It is full of energy. There is a power drive. It is not based on surface attractions. There are no sympathetic figures. But there is a profound psychological undercurrent and a genuine sense of the dream mode.
...
SYNOPSIS FROM WIKIPEDIA
Plot
Jay and Gal are two former British soldiers turned hitmen. While Gal is laid-back, Jay is still reeling from a disastrous mission in Kyiv. Despite his wife Shel's urgings, Jay has not obtained full employment, to the point where they are financially broke.
Shel organizes a dinner party, which was joined by Gal and his girlfriend Fiona, a human resources manager. During the party, Gal reveals he has a new job for them, which Jay eventually accepts. Meanwhile, Fiona goes to the toilet, carves a symbol on the back of the bathroom mirror, and collects a tissue with Jay's blood. Jay and Gal meet the client, who has a list of three people he wants killed. The employer unexpectedly cuts Jay's hand and his own, so that the contract is effectively signed in blood.
Their first target, captioned as "The Priest", recognizes Jay and thanks him just before being killed. The second name on the list, "The Librarian", is an archivist who keeps a collection of horrific, sickening videos of an undisclosed nature. Jay is deeply disturbed by the videos and breaks down in tears. As the duo enter the archivist's home, an enraged Jay beats him senseless and tortures him into identifying the videos' creators. As Gal goes to raid the safe, the archivist thanks Jay, who proceeds to savagely beat him to death with a hammer. In the archivist's files, Gal finds a folder on himself and Jay, including details of their Kyiv mission. Although they do not recognize it, the files include the symbol that Fiona carved in Jay's mirror.
Jay insists they kill the archivist's associates. Gal drives them to the location of the creators of the videos, where Jay brutally murders all of them. Gal informs Jay that, from the archivist's safe, he took enough money to cover the contract money. The pair decide to abandon the contract and return home. When his cut hand becomes infected, Jay visits his regular doctor, only to find he has been replaced by another man who will only give him cryptic advice.
Jay and Gal return to their client and offer to find replacements for the last hit. The client refuses and says that both hitmen and their families will be killed if they do not complete the contract. Shel takes their son Sam to the family's cottage for safekeeping while Jay and Gal go back to work.
Their final mark, "The MP", is a Member of Parliament who lives in a mansion. While observing the house, the pair witness a strange ceremony in the woods that culminates in human sacrifice. Jay opens fire with an assault rifle, and the leader of the ceremony presents himself for Jay to execute. He kills the leader and several cultists before the remaining masked members chase the hitmen into an underground complex. They capture and disembowel Gal, forcing Jay to perform a mercy killing on him. Emerging from the tunnels, Jay flees to the family cottage and meets with Shel. When he goes outside, he finds their car tyres have been slashed and lit torches have been placed around the nearby field. Jay attempts to locate their attackers, but he is knocked unconscious. Inside the cottage, Shel arms herself and shoots several invaders.
Jay awakens in the field surrounded by the cultists, who strip him and place a mask over his face. He is confronted by his last victim, "The Hunchback", a masked and cloaked person armed with a knife. After a brutal knife fight, Jay triumphs, only to discover that the Hunchback was his wife with Sam strapped to her back. Shel laughs as they both die. The cultists applaud and remove their masks, revealing Fiona, the client, and the man from the doctor's office amongst their numbers. Jay is then crowned by the cultists.
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