Kill List

A minute-by-minute analysis of Ben Wheatley's film, Kill List (2011).

2011’s Kill List, directed by Ben Wheatley and written by Wheatley and Amy Jump, provides an almost alchemical space by which audiences can watch as one genre transforms into another—from crime drama to paranoid thriller to terrifying folk horror—before our eyes. Narrative misdirection abounds in this film, but Wheatley and Jump are after something more than simple narrative cleverness.

This film encompasses supernatural conspiracies and shocking acts of violence, but at its heart it’s a story of a man trying to be a good husband and father—and failing comprehensively at both tasks. It’s also a story of the larger forces that can govern most people’s lives, whether the economic impact of a recession or the strategic deployment of rituals and magic.

Taking readers through the events of Kill List minute by minute, this book explores the dense plotting and overlapping threads of this film, the thematic anxieties that plague its characters, and the allusions to heroes and conflicts that bolster its storytelling. Kill List is both a visceral trip into one man’s waking nightmare and a haunting exploration of moral ruin. This book is a rigorous guide to the cinematic landmarks found along the way.