| Reviews & Columns |
|
Reviews DVD TV on DVD Blu-ray 4K UHD International DVDs In Theaters Reviews by Studio Video Games Features Collector Series DVDs Easter Egg Database Interviews DVD Talk Radio Feature Articles Columns Anime Talk DVD Savant Horror DVDs The M.O.D. Squad Art House HD Talk Silent DVD
|
 DVD Talk Forum |
|
|
| Resources |
|
DVD Price Search Customer Service #'s RCE Info Links |
|
Columns
  
 
|
|
|
Killer Movie
Phase 4 // R // October 13, 2009
List Price: $19.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
) |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
The slasher stuff in Killer Movie is all pretty paint-by-numbers: a completely silent masked killer picking everyone off one-by-one, another mangled corpse is tossed onto the body count every ten-to-fifteen minutes, there's a gasp-shocking reveal once the butcher's mask is yanked off...you know how this song goes by now. The movie squirts a little bit of blood around on the screen, sure, there's even some dismemberment, and...hey! Head on a pike. Killer Movie isn't some demented splatterfest, though, and whenever a kill scene rolls around, the flick kinda just seems as if it's trying to get it out of the way...a workmanlike clocking-in, as if that's just another checkbox it's trying to mark off. The stalk-and-slash is really routine, but Killer Movie makes up for it by...well, having everything else be pretty great.
Killer Movie is just a ridiculous amount of fun. It helps that this reality TV riff is written and directed by Jeff Fisher, a guy with eight years of shows like The Simple Life and The Real World/Road Rules Challenge under his belt. This is Fisher's first time fielding something that's...y'know, scripted and feature-length, but there's a confidence that still really comes through. He doesn't hide behind hypercaffeinated quick cutting or overly gimmicky camerawork, and Fisher clearly knows how to coax the best out of his actors. The reality TV framework helps the storytelling flow along extremely smoothly -- why settle for clunky exposition when you can chuck out another confessional? -- and it sports a pretty terrific sense of humor. The comedy's kind of understated: low-key and breezy, not flailing its arms around, screaming "this is the wacky, zany part!!!" the way a lot of these movies do. It's a more relaxed, more natural flavor of funny, and it helps that it's all being belted out by a pretty great cast.
Killer Movie is
) |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Killer Movie is really being mismarketed as a horror flick since it's about as terrifying as a Halloween episode of Boy Meets World, but don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that stalking and slashing that was bleaker and more unnervingly tense would've fit the bill; that would've been jarringly out of step with the tone that the rest of Killer Movie lobs out. I do think a parade of deliriously over-the-top kills -- or at least something more creative than standard issue gut-stabbing, strangulation, or a slit throat -- would've made for something even more fun. It comes close a couple of times, like having a fist-fight where a guy only has, uh, one fist, but most of the kills play like they're just trying to get an obligation out of the way. With a lot of slashers, I suffer through the stuff in between to get to the blood-drenched center of that Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop. This time around, I really dug all the character-centric stuff and thought the horror angle wound up being kind of a distraction. It goes full-bore with all the clichés, and not in some smirkingly post-modern sense either: the ookie "evil has come to your little town!" local, cell phone signals that come and go, and even sequel-bait. (There's also some half-nekkid girl-on-girl, so...yeah, there's that.) That's okay, though, since I dug just about everything else in Killer Movie. It's a pretty great spoof on reality TV, I dig its sense of humor, and I really, really like the cast. Kind of mixed but still Recommended.
Video
Y'know, Killer Movie may be a budget release, but it sure doesn't look like it. The 1.78:1 image is generally sharp and nicely detailed, and all sorts of intricate patterns and textures are rendered here without any hiccups at all. A few stretches are on the soft side, sure, and snippets like the slasher's shoulder-cam were shot on standard-def video and obviously don't stack up to the rest of the movie, but most of it looks great in HD. The tight, gritty texture of its film grain is kept intact, and the AVC encode never buckles under the weight of it all. The image is reinforced by punchy black levels, beefing up that reasonably strong sense of depth and dimensionality too. It's also nice to see how warm and natural the palette can be, shrugging off the stark, desaturated cliché that's been lurching around for a few years now. Just 'cause this is a lower budget movie from a small shop doesn't mean we've gotta grade on a curve...this is a really great looking Blu-ray disc.
Audio
) |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Oh, and there aren't any subtitles or alternate soundtracks this time around. Sorry.
Extras
- Behind the Scenes of Killer Movie (13 min.; SD): This making-of featurette hops back and forth between a barrage of quippy interviews with a gaggle of actors and quick peeks at how Killer Movie came together: notes about the tight production schedule, writer/director Jeff Fisher chatting about his background in reality TV, and short snippets of behind-the-scenes footage. If you're holding out for something piercingly insightful or whatever, the smart money says you'll walk away disappointed, but I had fun with it. I actually wish some of these same guys could've piled in front of the mic and hammered out an audio commentary, but you can't win 'em all.
- Trailer (2 min.; SD): The only other extra is a standard-def theatrical trailer. A few other trailers play before the movie too, for anyone keeping track at home.
The Final Word
As a reality riff, Killer Movie is a ridiculous amount of fun, but as a horror flick...? Not so much. The stalk-and-slash kinda comes across as an afterthought, and it just seems to get in the way more than anything else. Don't get me wrong, though: I dug the movie anyway, and with this Blu-ray disc making the rounds online for ten bucks, the price is definitely right. I'm kind of waffling between a "Rent It!" and a "Recommended!", but...oh, why not? I'll be nice and round up. Recommended.
Hey! A Few More Screengrabs
)
)
)
|
| Popular Reviews |
| Sponsored Links |
|
|
| Sponsored Links |
|
|
| Release List | Reviews | Shop | Newsletter | Forum | DVD Giveaways | Blu-Ray | Advertise |
|
Copyright 2024 DVDTalk.com All Rights Reserved. Legal Info, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use,
Manage Preferences,
Your Privacy Choices 
| |||||||