Some Guy Who Kills People
APRIL 1 » 6:15p
BOSTON PREMIERE
2011, US, 97 min.
Director: Jack Perez Screenwriter: Ryan A. Levin
Cast: Kevin Corrigan, Barry Bostwick, Karen Black, Lucy Davis
Official Selection Fantasia Film Festival 2011
Official Selection Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2011
After a staycation at the local insane asylum, 30-something Ken Boyd returns to the living-athome, ice-cream-scoopslinging reality normally reserved for late adolescence or post-college ne’erdo-wells. Lonely and world-weary from a particularly brutal encounter with the basketball team in his formative years, Ken generally finds solace, and catharsis, in the blood splattered spreads of the comic books he draws.
Abused at work by boss and customers alike, Ken, occasionally forced to don a giant ice cream cone suit, is a man who silently takes his licks until he’s finally pushed to the breaking point. When that cone of calm, cool collectedness cracks, years of resentment take hold of a hatchet, righting old wrongs with a satisfying crunch. The old convention of the quiet guy/serial killer dichotomy gets new life breathed into it with the sharp, dark, dry wit of the expertly written characters that populate this small town; it’s like Dexter with the gleeful energy of “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.”
Ken’s life goes from lonely to flushwith-ladies in almost no time at all when love-interest Stephanie (played by the subtly hilarious Lucy Davis) and the precocious daughter he never met, Amy, enter his life simultaneously, hijacking the wheel from his dark passenger. The stakes become raised as he learns to live, love and laugh again while still juggling his psychopathic extracurricular activities. The challenges of maintaining an illicit double-life come to a head as Sheriff Walt Fuller, whose Aristophanic asides steal every scene he’s in, starts to piece together the mystery.
A well-seasoned balance of comedy, slasher fare, and family drama, Some Guy Who Kills People fashions a world of unique, charismatic characters with believable interpersonal chemistry seldom seen in this genre. Truly a crowd-pleaser, the comeuppance Ken’s tormenters get is almost as satisfying as the film’s unlikely-but-nevertheless-heartwarming conclusion.
– Nicole McControversy
PLAYING WITH
Deadbox
Richard Karpala
9 min
Some box that kills people.
