Who Killed the KLF?

To be honest, I was just looking for something relaxing to put on in the background to help me fall asleep. Scrolling around, half-zoned out, and then - bam - I saw the title.

I stopped in my tracks.

"KLF? THE KLF? Aha aha?!"

I've loved and listened to their music since I was a young little tot - through my teens, my twenties, my thirties, and I'm still blasting KLF in my fourties.

So, obviously, I decided sleep ain't happening. *This* was happening. I grabbed some food, charged my vape, got super comfy... Ready for a late-night nostalgic rabbit hole.

Man... how anticlimactic that turned out to be.

What follows is a documentary that somehow manages to take one of the most unpredictable, flamboyant, anti-establishment acts in music history... and make them boring, confusing, and emotionally hollow.

The main culprit is the editing. It's aggressively stylized, non-linear, and obsessed with recreating the chaos of the KLF's image - but it completely fails at basic storytelling. There's no rhythm, no build, no emotional arc. Just a blender of VHS clips, cryptic voiceovers, reenactments, and half-explained moments that go absolutely nowhere.

Here's one of the worst examples: Claire Fletcher, who joined the KLF on a weird ritualistic trip to Jura, suddenly says: "Now I have four children. Kitty Lily Fletcher. It was meant to be, clearly. She hates that story."

What? Who? Why?

Only after pausing to search online did I find out she met her husband on that trip, and they later named their daughter Kitty Lily Fletcher, a tribute to KLF (the initials). That's a genuinely sweet and poetic real-life detail. In the film, it's edited like a riddle on shuffle play.

Same goes for the love story: she mentions reaching out to a guy and suddenly they're married with kids. No setup, no emotional payoff - just a bizarre cut to "happily ever after."

And then there's the completely false claim that "you can't find KLF's music anywhere today." As I said, I've been enjoying their music for literal decades, from CDs to MP3s to streaming, I can confidently say: that's simply not true.

Their music is on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Bandcamp - it's everywhere. It's a simple google search. So either the filmmakers didn't bother to update that section, or they chose to preserve the myth at the cost of the truth.

I get the intent: reflect the mystery and anti-commercial chaos of the KLF. But that doesn't excuse turning a fascinating story into a disjointed, self-indulgent collage that constantly alienates the viewer. You can be surreal and make sense. You can honor a band's weirdness without confusing the hell out of your audience.

Instead, we get a documentary that refuses to explain itself, even when it desperately needs to.

There's value in the subject matter - the KLF really were one of the most interesting acts of the 20th century. But this film buries that story under cryptic editing and false mystique.

Unless you're a hardcore fan who already knows all the context, don't expect insight. Just expect vibes.

Well can I just say that to the people who are complaining about the documentary not being good enough and not what they expected from the klf well to be fair they didn't want this documentary aired at all and started legal proceedings against the producers who actually made this documentary which I believe had something to with James corden's production company so yes there was alot of things in it that maybe didn't make much sense and wasn't what alot of people expected from this pair of guys who were behind it but as I said before it wasn't them who actually wanted it aired and would almost certainly have done it differently so maybe take that into account.

If you loved the KLF and their antics, this is a great film to watch. If you're not sure who they are, this is a story about a great friendship and the twisted surreal path they took in the 90's. It ask what real success looks like? Questions the power of money? Media? Also , what is art and who decides it's value? How easily an industry can be manipulated? This film may leave you with more questions than answers, but I found it a delight to watch with details about the duos exploits I did not know and to gain an insight into what influenced their ethos and their actions. This is truly independent film!

I was keen to see this in the cinema but it didnt really appear anywhere that I was able to attend so it was a surprise when this arrived online. Its been a while since I last thought about it I had to check this was the new documentary and not just a re-release of the burning of the cash film.

These style of docs seem to be made from offcuts of recorded dialogue and archival footage, which on the basis means they can be made by anyone at anytime about anybody, with little input from the bands. As such its basically a montage with some structure while emotive music plays in the background with the odd scene of actors pretending to be the band in unusual places.

The pros are that we get some new information about the band, which is pretty much it.

The cons are greater in number. For a start the documentary is apparently suggesting the KLF were the first to use samples, in 1987, as if hip hop didn't exist. Hip hop was almost entirely samples based music with a few drum machines. Those that were not like stetsasonic were rare. When the band actually state they were trying to make a hip hop record.

There is some background info on their philosophy but like almost every topic its very surface level, the interview footage doesnt go into any great depth its mainly soundbytes.

And while that is the main issue, lack of depth the other is it entirely fails to provide an explanation for anything, in particular the burning of the million pounds. This appears to be a deliberate act of self harm on the part of the group and they obviously have never recovered from it. The telling statement that one of them was prone to thoughts of self harming was their idea of chopping off their hand to throw on the audience which is documented in this title. There is no psychological analysis of the pair which is exactly what this documentary lacked and probably what both of the guys needed to come to terms and gain insight into some of their self destructive actions. To simply put it down to art is lazy as well as an avoidance of accountability.

In terms of burning the cash however, cash is burned on a daily basis when it reaches its end of usefulness, which kind of undermines their act of burning their money. It would have been burned anyway.

The ending brings this all home as it basically ends without resolving anything, it seemed to end 15 mins too early.

I am sure this is a better doc to be made about the KLF however this one will have to do for fans for now.

Apparently the KLF are quite happy with this doc, most likely because it doesnt actually answer anything......which suits their agenda quite well.

I don't understand the point of this documentary, it brings nothing new and is just boring. Your better off reading on wiki about the band and your find in 5 mins of reading. Why we're your time watching this for 1hr 40 mins you'll never get back.