SOME GUY WHO KILLS PEOPLE

 2011/15/94m

Director: Jack Perez / Writer: Ryan Levin / Cast: Kevin Corrigan, Barry Bostwick, Karen Black, Lucy Davis, Leo Fitzpatrick, Ariel Gade, Eric Price.

Body Count: 4

Laughter Lines: “She’s looks old enough to me! How old are you, nineteen?” / “Eleven.”

Remember when The Sixth Sense came out and everybody was dying to tell each other the twist but risked ruining the experience for those who hadn’t seen it? If I go into too much detail about Some Guy Who Kills People, I’ll ruin it for you.

Not that there’s a massive revelation at the end of this film that’ll have you going: “Woah! Totally far out, man! Didn’t see that one coming!” But the journey through this film is one that takes you to places not necessarily unexpected, just at odds with what IS expected.

Thus, the film follows one Ken Boyd (Corrigan, who is perfect), ice-cream parlor employee who was released from an institution not that long ago after a suicide attempt. Flashbacks inform us that years before he was kidnapped and beaten up by a quartet of high school jocks who he, as the team mascot, had managed to humiliate.

Life sucks for Ken. His bossy mom (Black) has no problem voicing her disappointment in him in between her romps with the local sheriff (Bostwick), his boss has him dress up as a giant ice cream cone to hand out leaflets on the street or hawk their wares at the party of one of Ken’s bullies of yore… …who is found with an axe in his head the next morning.

At the same time, Ken’s 11-year-old daughter Amy randomly turns up in his life and, alienated by her religious parents, moves in with him and his mom, hoping for the role model she’s always dreamt of. Despite Ken’s social ineptitude, general silence, and jittery manner, he begins to cheer up about life, more so when he starts dating British-totty Stephanie (Davis, from The Office).

Murders continue as each of the grown-up assholes are tracked down by Ken and then hacked to pieces, slashed up in the cab of their truck, or hunted in the dark of an outdoors store. Unbeknownst to him, Amy has followed him and finds him stood over the latest body… Where it goes from here, I’ll leave you to discover on your own.

I found Some Guy Who Kills People in Poundland, so it cost me almost nothing and I expected very little from it; another of those cheap-ass “horror-comedies” that is neither scary, nor amusing. While SGWKP can’t really lay claim to being frightening or LOL-funny, there’s a production and artistic quality on show that has it striding ahead of most other examples.

The laughs are sarcastic and subtle, with Bostwick great as the weary sheriff and Ariel Gade proves she has more acting chops than most kids-what-can-act (plus she’s not annoying), while Corrigan, whose familiarity is down to numerous appearances in various well-known TV series’, carries off his part with considerable believability, weighing calculating serial killer and misunderstood sad guy in equal measure.

Slasher shenanigans play second fiddle to other elements here, but it’s bloody when required, self aware, not pleased with itself, and occasionally tender.

Blurbs-of-interest: The late Karen Black can be found as the mom in Children of the Corn IV, Oliver Twisted, and is also in Out of the Dark and Curse of the Forty-Niner; lead Corrigan is married to Elizabeth Berridge, who was the lead in The Funhouse.

The olde “cross out the faces of the victims” clincher… or is it?