The Killing Games

THE KILLING GAMES
Writer/Director:Barry J. Gillis
Starring: Yunona Anders, Edwin Autridge, Kelly A.H. Bird, John Scott
Availability: Available on Apple ITunes and Google Play
Rating:

 

    When I was still in the infancy of my cult film love affair, I remember renting a weird little movie called Things.  A movie that had the feel of a shot on shiteo production, it was actually shot on 8mm and 16mm film.  When I first saw it, I hated it.  I thought it was one of the worst movies I had ever seen.  Of course, back then, I was fucking misguided.  In my adolescent years, I turned my back on true backyard films like that.  Once I got a little older, though, I revisited Things, and my attitude towards the film changed.  I absolutely loved it.  It is one of the most certifiably crazy films ever made, and it now stands as one of my favorite movies of all time.  Barry J. Gillis was one of the masterminds behind that film, and has since moved on to much darker pastures.

    Gillis's previous film, Wicked World, was a nasty, nihilistic piece of work that still had a lot of the odd, surrealistic touches Things had.  His newest film, The Killing Games, drops a lot of the weirder elements, and cranks up the nastiness to 11.  I can also say without any hesitation that, while I will always have a soft spot for Things, this is easily the best thing Gillis has been involved in.  The movie starts with the brutal double homicide of a young couple fucking in the park.  The killers are Son of Satan (Edwin Autridge) and Dirty Jesus (John Scott), and they are a couple of the most twisted, depraved, darkly funny psychopaths I've encountered in quite some time.   Two girls witness the brutal slaying, and while one gets away, the other one isn't so lucky.

    Meanwhile, back at home, the father of the girl who got away, a man who goes by Birdman, is starting to worry about what has happened with his daughter, and starts contemplating taking the law into his own hands.  I won't go into much beyond that, but I will say that once the blood starts flying, it doesn't let up.  This is a movie that absolutely wallows in its depravity.  This is a true modern grindhouse movie without all the faux-grindhouse make-up that you usually see in a film like this.  It's a grim, nasty exploitation flick that will make you feel dirty afterwards, and trust me when I say that's a fucking compliment.

    I absolutely loved the colorful characters Gillis crammed this movie with.  The gang of thugs that Birdman seeks to annihilate are all wild, eccentric lunatics with absolutely no regard for human life.  In a lot of ways, the movie feels like there's some real subtext here about the nature of the human condition.  People, by nature, are fucked up, and we are prone to doing incredibly fucked up shit to each other.  It's the nature of the best.  One of the odd parts of the film was Birdman's wife, who is suffering from a life-threatening illness (we're never told what the illness is).  Her presence in the film is almost enigmatic.

    Over the years, Canada has been responsible for some of the most eccentric genre cinema I've ever seen, and this is no exception.  This movie also gained some notoriety when it was banned from his Barry's hometown film festival for being too violent.  It's not an all out bloodbath.  The film is more interested in the eccentric cast of characters, and showing you what vile, morally bankrupt people they are.  When the violence does appear, though, it makes quite an impact.  The movie's conclusion is a potent blend of brutality, catharsis, and in a surreal moment involing Nick Zedd's Police State, almost poetic.

    This is true exploitation cinema at its finest.  The film's not without its flaws, so I was on the fence on what to give this film, but since it achieves everything it set out to do, it's getting a solid 4 out of 5 from me.  Barry J. Gillis is one of the most unique voices in the world of cult cinema, and I can't wait to see what his demented fucking mind gives us next.

    Until next time, my fellow freaks and weirdos...