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Sunday, January 2, 2011

Killer Movie (2008) Horror Comedy

Killer Movie (2008) - Jeff Fisher wrote and directed this story about a reality show director Jake Tanner (Paul Wesley) working on a show about a small town hockey's team push for the championship season. His problems are endless, a bitch of a producer, ornery sound guy, diva star as an assistant, and worst of all a killer knocking off his crew and the local town folks.
Shot in reality show style with the crew talking to the camera adds to a mildly entertaining film that never seems to want to make a choice between slasher or comedy. The result of this decision is a film that has little personality. They sort of mixed the forms, so it is not a movie about this crew working on the show. They are treated as contestants talking about each other and working conditions in the small town of White Plains. They complain about Lee Tyson (Cyia Batten) the producer and then some more about small town Americans, always they make LA television people look like entitled assholes.
The killer is obviously a man from the beginning. He wears a mask and a mechanics jumpsuit and kills in a variety of ways. Knives, axes, bench saws, barbed wire and meat hook all come into play. I guess the writer wanted to avoid the iconic killer by varying the methods. Well it worked this killer is very forgettable.
Adding to the structural confusion is the show within a show, on one had we have the above mentioned interview techniques. Then we have the crew doing interviews for the hockey show as well as Lee pushing everyone to focus on some local dynamic between the current coach and the past coach. The past coach just got out of jail after ten years for killing his wife. I guess wives have less value in North Dakota if you only get ten years. So these scenes are mixed in but really not the point of the film. It is there to create a red herring in the ex killer but come on I think we have seen enough of these type movies to know the killer was not the ex con.
So there are some kills but all really are off camera, with splatter or after effects to view. The killer has cameras all over town and we know from the start that this is his own special show he is creating. So is it one of the crew or one of the locals? Well if you were paying attention to the opening credits you know the killer is an escaped mental health patient. BUT who is it? Well you can guess some if you pay attention to who is friends with who. Then of course you can be like my daughter and just guess because he is so obviously the killer.
The killer is not Blanca Champion (Kaley Cuoco), the ex star now working as Jake's assistant. She really is sort of the star of the film and the finalgirl. She really is not the main character even though she is probably the biggest star. Jake really is the guy we are following and he is indeed the hero. In the end the film plays a dirty trick to have the possibility of a sequel.


Rating (4.8) in the Zombigrrlz system I would say SKIP IT!

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