KILL LIST - Every once in a while I like to revisit 'Kill List', Wheatley's second feature and the one that put him on the map. It's such a strong movie; the 2010s were a good decade for horror with a couple of stone cold classics in there, and I think 'Kill List' could creep into my top ten. Barebones, it's about two hit men on a job that outwardly entails snuffing a trio of horrible perps, but beyond the basics things get hazy, opening up to the creeping tendrils of cosmic conspiracy. It's a film that gets a bit of stick for being confusing, though in that it foreshadowed and possibly influenced the genre tendency, more apparent later in the decade and in strong ascendancy now, for increasing obliqueness and abstraction. What stands out is the sense of an awful, gnawing tension that permeates nearly every frame from pretty much the kick off. Wheatley sets out his stall with a nigh on unbearable dinner party scene brimming with a menace that seems to spread itself through the entire film. There's a suburban claustrophobia to 'Kill List', and I think what I love most about it is how the film warps the landscape of dowdy high street UK through moody, highly textured editing and sound - the discordant drone soundtrack is a definite highlight. Aside from that, Neil Maskell?s performance does the rest of the work and seems to embody the film's uneasy energy, going from a kind of bovine sullenness to scary volatility and throwing off sparks along the way. I don't think the payoff is equal to the film's masterfully grim mood, but 'Kill List' is a film of obvious quality that withstands repeated viewings, and you don't get many movies that throw Mike Leigh and HP Lovecraft in with a bit of 'Get Carter'.
THE SPIDER LABYRINTH - One of my fave little subgenres is late eighties / early nineties Italian horror, stuff made well after the glory days. Mostly I like it because it's ridiculous and floridly artificial - see the unintentional unreality of the Filmirage flicks for instance. Many of those films are not good, but some are, like the work of Michele Soavi. I would not hesitate to call 'The Spider Labyrinth' a good film, in fact one of the best from Italian horror cinema's last days. It's well crafted, mysterious and highly atmospheric, the kind of thing I lap up. A professor lands in Budapest in search of his lost colleague; he stumbles upon a cultic conspiracy that snares him in its web of slow burning dread. I'd seen 'The Spider Labyrinth' once before on a crappy bootleg that obscured its visual qualities, which are often gorgeous and set the dreamlike tone, so important for a film that follows in the footsteps of the greats of surreal Euro horror. The nods to Argento, particularly to 'Inferno', are obvious, though the candy-coloured phantasmagoria is comparatively subdued in favour of a vibe not dissimilar to something like 'The Tenant' by way of 'The Thing'(!) Yes, 'Spider Labyrinth' lets loose with a scattering of generously icky fx moments, not many but they do leave an impression, particularly the ones at the end. If I hoped there'd be more, I didn't come away feeling short changed, so taken was I with the film's virulent mood. I dunno, 'The Spider Labyrinth' is just one of those that make you think "yep, this is why I'm into horror." Total recommend, and a film I'll return to many times.
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