‘KillHer’ Review: An Agonizing Exercise in Aimlessness
Tyler Doupe'
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I know how hard it is to make a film. And just getting one produced and distributed is an accomplishment in and of itself. So, on that basis, I commend Robyn August for getting KillHer made. With that said, I didn’t connect with this picture on any meaningful level. The dialogue is grating; the acting is challenging; logic never seems to be a consideration; and the scenery-chewing villain makes the third act nearly unwatchable.
KillHer follows newly engaged Mattie (Jenna Z. Alvarez) and her gal pals Eddie (M.C. Huff), Jess (Emily Hall), and Rae (Nicole Lovince) as they set off on a pre-bachelorette party camping excursion. Little do the women know, a killer is lying in wait and their outdoor adventure is about to turn into a deadly bloodbath.
Right from the jump, KillHer is pretty rough. The performances are not convincing enough to pull the viewer into the narrative and the dialogue feels stilted and unnatural to young women in their twenties. But I held out hope that the picture might get better as the action eventually ramped up. Unfortunately, the inverse is true. Matters only proceed to get worse as things intensify. With each new narrative development, the story gets progressively more outrageous and eventually falls to pieces in the third act. The antagonist turns in a scenery-chewing performance that further took me out of the narrative and left me perplexed.
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I was truly befuddled by how zany the last leg of KillHer gets. A little camp goes a long way. Accordingly, there’s a fine line between over-the-top and unbearable. But it’s as if August thought an unhinged antagonist chewing up the scenery to the point of no return would add character and charm. As such, he set his villain loose to overact until the cows came home. Sadly, that just made me feel even more alienated from the proceedings.
Though the antagonist really takes the cake, almost everyone here turns in a challenging performance. All of the core cast members come across as stiff and unnatural. This is especially true in sequences like the campfire dance montage which is immediately followed by the women stripping down to their bras. It seems screenwriter Tom Kiesche thinks disrobing is what women in their 20s do while camping.
Another qualm I have with the script is that the attempts at meta-horror commentary come off as a little trite. It’s as if the characters think they are smarter than the film they are in. But they aren’t all that bright and the film isn’t particularly witty, either.
It’s not just the genre commentary that grates, however. Almost all of the attempts at comedy also fall flat. In one sequence, the core characters see a stranger materialize at their campsite and reach for a weapon. But they arm themselves with ridiculous props like a camera and a pinecone.
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A similarly humorless exchange occurs when Jess and Rae meet the proprietor of a woodsy motel nestled in the middle of nowhere. They scream, the owner screams, and then the ladies scream again. And so on and so forth. The entire scene falls flat. It’s not funny. It’s just silly, over-the-top, and uninspired.
Worse yet, the logic employed by the characters is continuously difficult to discern. When the ladies are unnerved by a camper who is staying nearby, Mattie tells Rae and Jess to drive around for a while and then come back. I really can’t tell you what purpose that serves, other than setting up Jess and Rae to get stranded in the middle of nowhere, allowing them to lose their way, and leaving Mattie and Eddie stranded at the campsite overnight. So, while that development may serve to further the narrative on some level, it certainly doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I think some of the film’s shortcomings are meant to be quirky and funny. But that wasn’t the takeaway for me. Other viewers may enjoy how everything devolves into a chaotic mixture of questionable logic and overacting. But I didn’t see the charm in that.
On the whole, KillHer is silly, illogical, and never manages to fully engage its audience. KillHer is out now on VOD from Dark Sky.
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‘KillHer'
Summary
This campy slasher may win some viewers over. But I am certainly not one of them.
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