Some Guy Who Kills People

You can smell the involvement of John Landis in this production very early on. It hits just the right tone of slapstick horror, comedy and family drama.

Ken Boyd (Kevin Corrigan) has been in a hospital for the treatment of his depression and suicidal tendencies. When he gets out, he acquires a little job working in an ice-cream parlour (the advertising of which provides many chuckles). We get flashbacks of bullies at school torturing him. Then, back in the present, the bullies start to get killed with a modicum of gratuitous violence. Throw into the mix his daughter Amy (Ariel Gade - Dark Water), who has just found out where her dad lives, and you've got the recipe for gory death pie topped with tender fatherliness.

This film has many strengths. It is well made and well written. Most of the funny lines go to the Sheriff and Boyd's mum and there are enough to keep you laughing throughout (your sense of humour needs to be on the black side though). The main strength is the acting and relationship of the father and daughter. Corrigan is fantastic as a man coming from depression into a state where he feels more able to cope with life by the end. Gade is wise beyond her years and the relationship between her and her dad comes across as very real.

One fly in the topical cream is the inclusion of Lucy Davis as a love interest for Boyd. She was in The Office. She's irritating.

If you can stomach a small amount of gore and blood you will be rewarded with a funny and touching experience.

Ken Boyd (Kevin Corrigan) seems like a regular guy in a regular dead-end job. However, while the job -ice cream parlor server / mascot- is awful, Ken himself has a terrible secret. He's haunted by a nightmarish incident from his past, when a group of town thugs put him through a torturous hell. Now, years later, these same goons start dying in gruesome ways.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Walt Fuller (Barry Bostwick) and his officers are on the case. In the midst of all this, someone enters Ken's life whom he never expected to see. Her name is Amy (Ariel Gade). She's pint-sized and about to change Ken's life forever.

SOME GUY WHO KILLS PEOPLE is a smart, wickedly funny, and refreshing take on the cat-and-mouse / serial killer / revenge movie. It works as a black comedy, a murder mystery, and, believe it or not, a touching father / daughter film! It has its poignant moments, which even tugged at this stone heart!

Corrigan is perfectly deadpan as the title character, and Ms. Gade provides the sunlight for an otherwise darkly comedic story. Bostwick makes a great, bumbling lawman, and Karen Black plays Ken's mom, Ruth, with her usual ease and grace. Lucy Davis takes on the part of Ken's suitably bewildered girlfriend.

A definite keeper...

Ken Boyd (Kevin Corrigan), a lonely man fresh out of the loony bin, sets out to kill those he deems responsible for his miserable life.

Since I did not know most of the people attached to this (besides Karen Black and executive producer John Landis), I did not know what to expect. I set my sights low, and came out with quite an impressed mind. This is not your typical slasher. It is oddly endearing and has just enough comedy and plot twists to really keep the audience interested.

Kevin Corrigan is superb, Barry Bostwick even better... but, of course, we must salute Ariel Gade in this breakout performance. She adeptly portrays the precocious 11-year old Amy, and is both likable and a good plot-carrier. Gade, even more than Corrigan, keeps the story going.

I have not yet checked out the special features, but would like to. I think they would greatly enhance my understanding and appreciation for this already pleasantly-surprisingly gem.

Going into Some Guy Who Kills People it seemed like nobody knew much about the film and going by the trailer, nobody was expecting much either. Was I ever wrong. This film didn't just kill it's own characters, it also had the audience dying with laughter. Don't get fooled by the trailer... you'll only end up a fool yourself.

Karen Black isn't in the film as much as I'd like her to be as she not only has some of the best lines in the film but her performance is absolutely fantastic. Karen really outdid herself in this role and though some veterans might just decide to call their roles in, she goes well beyond what anyone could have expected from her.

A newcomer to the scene, Ariel Gade, is a breath of fresh air. Move over Chloë Moret, there may be some new competition in the young genre actor category. Ariel not only plays a smart character, she's a smart choice and a great find. Who would have thought the little girl from Dark Water and Aliens vs Predator - Requiem would turn out to be such a good actor? She was made for the role and delivers it with a timing you usually only find in seasoned veteran actors.

Finally there's Barry Bostwick. What can I say about a man that first caught my eye as Brad Majors in The Rocky Horror Picture Show? How about being my favourite thing about this film? From the trailer for the film you can see that there is humour involved in his part. What you don't see is the fact that because Mr. Bostwick is the sheriff, he's in the film a lot. His character is absolutely off the wall and Mr. Bostwick plays him brilliantly. He is comedy gold with a deadpan serious delivery that combines super intelligence with hit you over the head obvious observations. He might give Yoda a run for his money.

Some Guy Who Kills People is marketing itself to the wrong crowd. This film is comedy gold through and through but seems to be trying to sell itself as a horror comedy. Sure there are elements of horror with the serial killer aspect but the horror portion of the film is only there so that the comedic elements have a plot to wrap themselves around. This film should focus on selling the laughs and less on trying to win over the genre crowd.

This is just one funny movie.

The Dexter series has paved the way nicely for some modern anti-heroes. It's OK to be a serial killer provided the people you kill are not nice people. The worse the crime, the more acceptable (on screen) it is to kill the criminal and the less guilty we can feel about enjoying the spectacle of their death.

So Some Guy Who Kills People rides along on similar rails and gives us someone we can both root for, be afraid of and concerned about all in one highly confusing package.

Kevin Corrigan plays unorthodox Ken Boyd, a depressive cartoonist recently released from the 'loony bin' into a world he doesn't understand. Clearly resident in the kind of small town community where everyone knows everyone else, Boyd lives with his sardonic mother (Karen Black) and works the only job he can get: slopping out ice cream at the local diner.

Ken keeps his head down and his mouth shut, but life has a way of intruding on his self-imposed cocoon in the form of his best friend Irv's unyielding encouragement to get out there and grab the bull by the horns, the attentions of beautiful English girl Stephanie (Lucy Davis) and Ken's long absent daughter of eleven years, Amy. This trio of distractions are merciless in their presence, drawing Ken away from his preferred mode of introspection and silence.

Character development is awesome, with young Ariel Gade hitting just the right level of chatty pre-teen and needy daughter vs vulnerable sweet kid and mini-charmer to win us over rather than put us off. Corrigan is effortlessly charismatic despite his apparent predilection for decapitating his enemies, and his rarity of lines (despite his presence in most scenes). Lucy Davis is a little too attractive and besotted to be believable, particularly as the first time she encounters Ken he is dressed up in a most unbecoming giant ice-cream costume. Davis also has a limited acting range, giving the same performance here as she gave in The Office and other American projects of late.

But Barry Bostwick is simply sublime as the eminently watchable Sheriff Walt Fuller and Karen Black puts in a great performance as the disillusioned chain-smoking mother with only the lowest expectations in her son.

Ultimately a moral warning about the perils of withdrawing and allowing the past to consume the present; thus missing out on the important things (like the parent/child relationship) Some Guy Who Kills People is a thought-provoking, beautifully crafted tale from beginning to end featuring some of the most comically subtle black humour you're ever likely to see on the big screen. You'll laugh, but you'll also hover on the edge of your seat. Mixing comedy with genuine drama is no mean feat and full credit should go to Perez, Levin and their wonderful cast for pulling it off with unparalleled aplomb.