MovieChat Forums > Kill List (2011) Discussion > The missing information doesn't matter. ...

The missing information doesn't matter. Great movie. Modern masterpiece.

posted 10 years ago by ProfessorPiehole
11 replies | jump to latest

My takeaway is that the movie was meant to depict the contrast between boring every day suburban life and the horrific evil that co-exists in our reality by presenting the audience with intense visual exposure to those worlds colliding.

Mission accomplished. It works fine to simply accept at face value that there is this pagan cult with a fixation on death that identifies an outsider as "the chosen one" and slowly infiltrates his world and then turns it inside out. The details don't matter. In fact, the pervasive sense of something ominous being out there that we don't fully understand made the movie even more effective.

I read that the director was heavily influenced by Stanley Kubrick, which is funny because throughout the movie I remember thinking that the music and other stylistic elements reminded me of Kubrick, who has also been known to leave much unexplained.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] ProfessorPiehole 10 years ago

Haven't seen it, but I just read the plot summary.

If you're strictly speaking in terms of plot concept as opposed to very specific presentation details, it doesn't sound carbon copy to me.

I mean, yeah, in both movies the main character is lured into a web by a pagan cult, but no art is created in a vacuum, everything is derivative of something else to some extent. Someone could just as easily accuse HBO's True Detective of ripping off elements from Kill List.

I don't know how powerful the small-detail similarities are but as I mentioned I thought certain stylistic elements of Kill List struck me as derivative of Kubrick, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment. For instance, when it flashed the words "The Priest" or "The Librarian" coupled with ominous music, it reminded me of the Shining.

However, I'll reserve judgment until I see Wicker Man.

Have you seen The Wicker Man (1973) with Christopher Lee?

How could you omit Edward Woodward form the "with" line? The Equalizer was such a solid show, it had one of the better TV intros.

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[–] ProfessorPiehole 10 years ago

Well, I watched Wicker Man, great movie! However, it didn't remind of Kill List at all.

Stylistically, they were radically different movies. Wicker Man was all about the 70s psychedelic atmosphere, kind of like the 70s Willie Wonka movie. Whereas, Kill List felt more like an everyday life atmosphere but with dark and violent elements layered on top, similar to the Blair Witch style.

Also, there was no real mystery lingering in Wicker Man. The underlying dogma of the cult was explained to a tee. In Kill List, most of it was left unexplained, and doing so served a different kind of film-making purpose.

Lastly, the plot device was different in both movies. Wicker Man was about an outsider descending into a world that he had been invited into and investigating it, whereas in Kill List the cult actually dispatched people to worm their way into the main character's non-professional life.

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[–] ProfessorPiehole 10 years ago

Yeah, guess I can't argue with the fact that Kill List triggered a connection to Wicker Man with other viewers and critics. Maybe watching them in the opposite order changed things for me.

A few comments though:

The Wicker Man's style is accurate to the village it was filmed. That wasn't purposely psychedelic or Wonka. It's accurate. Seriously! LOL!!

According to wiki Summerisle is fictional and the village they filmed in was on the mainland, are you saying that a lot of the non-human-sacrifice behavior of the villagers is accurate? For example, they really run around singing songs, dressing in costumes, and flaunting their sexuality? If so, wow.

The underlying dogma of the cult was not explained to a tee, at least not until the end, when the horrific twist makes clear their intentions.

We were told they worship the "old gods", which was clarified to mean the land, sea and nature in general and that this particular human sacrifice was meant to bring fertility to the soil. In Kill List we have no clue who they worship or what they believe their rituals will accomplish.

The plot devices were not different, except superficially. In both movies the main protagonist is an unsuspecting central character in an important rite for the cult, being led (misled) for one reason on the surface, but in fact his fate is a completely different one than he (and the viewer) suspects because the ritual requires that the central figure not be informed of his inevitable fate.

In Kill List there is no central rite that's pointed to, and it's certainly never stated in Kill List that the main character needs to be ignorant during the process the same way that the scripture in Wicker Man explicitly required free will. Maybe it's hair splitting, but I see a specific ceremony that is intended to yield a very specific magical effect as different than trying to brainwash someone into becoming the new leader.

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[–] dragmio 10 years ago

Ha ha, nice work. You took the guy apart.

It never ceases to amaze me how people complain when a movie reminds them of another filmed 40 years ago, but swoon over the most repetitious crap Hollywood churns out on a daily basis.

[–] zachanscom 10 years ago

you have a lot to say, but nothing of substance. the movie is about cosmic horror, that's where the lovecraft influences comes in and why nothing is explained. kubrick explores real issues through allegories.

this film is more similar to the wicker man than any of kubrick's work.

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