The Age of Commercialism

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

How's this for a typical, bad, teen horror film: a bunch of horny, booze-swilling college kids meet up at a secluded house in the woods (with no cell phone reception, of course), spend the first fifteen minutes of the film saying stupid things to each other and are then menaced by a psycho killer whose motivation makes no sense. Throw in some Saw, as the killer says pseudo-profound things to the victims via walky talky and the blood begins to flow. Also toss in some of the most over the top, melodramatic acting this side of afternoon soap operas. Trust me, you've seen this film over and over again since you were 13, only (in most cases) better. Terrible straight-to-video horror film (like most STV horror films are).

The picture opens with Walter getting out of a psychiatric institution after three years for killing three of his friends. Walter and Karl discuss this for nuances. Karl wants to see how well Walter does in the next year, and schedules regular visits.The film transitions to another environment where Walter can another kill-the-group exercise. Brent and Amber, Michael and Jennifer, Carlos and Nicole, the heavy loner Freddie, and the biker girl Alex. The group celebrates (early) their upcoming graduation at a remote vacation house that belongs to Michael's family.After a night of drinking and story telling, they retire for the evening. Nicole gets up to get a snack, and Walter grabs her. He offers her the choice of killing Carlos or being murdered herself. She chose the latter; Walter records the whole thing, then throws Nicole's corpse through a window onto Carlos. Michael tries to get his father's rifle from the basement, but Walter had already taken it, In its place he left many photos from the preceding two weeks. Walter calls them on a radio and tells him that they have to kill each other for any of them to survive (winner take all or all lose). Michael and Carlos go out to get the pistol in his father's boat. The boat has been sunk, and Carlos gets badly injured on the way back. Michael leaves Carlos there since Michael thought he was dead.What's left? It's classic elimination derby. Whom can one trust? Do we have to hear every detail from Walter's first killing spree?------Scores-------Cinematography: 10/10 Nicely shot, including the majority of the film which was shot in low-light.Sound: 8/10 No real problems.Acting: 3/10 Lousy. I've seen worse, but not too much worse.Screenplay: 3/10 Ordinary. The victims are very unimaginative, which eliminated most of their possibilities. As it was, the victims did most of the killer's work for him. The histrionics were not all that interesting, and did not illustrate motivations all that well. For instance, why did these 'friends' have so much energy devoted to killing each other in very messy, inefficient ways?

NO SPOILERS UNTIL THE END - CLEARLY MARKEDThis was your run of the mill, formulaic slasher film. The setup is the same setup you see in all films of this genre.. Group of teenagers/young 20 somethings going away on some trip to a secluded area where cell service doesn't seem to work - you have the usual interaction between the characters to set up who is who, the usual make out sessions to show you who is coupled with who, a few remarks about things that happened prior to the trip you don't care about to give you back story and it's all just a waiting game until the villain strikes. Kill Theory is no different.Brent and 6 of his friends go on a trip to one of his Father's many homes for a fun weekend. This large home is secluded with the closest establishment nearly 50 miles away. When they arrive, they find Alex, Brent's half sister (her Mother married his rich Father) who was also planning on staying at the home for the weekend so of course she joins the core group bringing the total number of people staying in the home to 8.The premise of the movie is that there is a deranged mad man who has apparently been stalking the main group for weeks who followed them to the home and has now demanded that by 6am the next morning only one of them be alive - they must kill each other to survive. He gruesomely kills one of them to send the message that he's serious and it's a message left on his/her body that leads them to a video that the man left for them explaining the rules. In the video they see their friend given the option to shoot his/her girlfriend/boyfriend who was sleeping at the time or die himself/herself. He/She refused and he kills him/her on camera. If you want to live, you need to kill your friends, period. It's an interesting premise but far from new. Criminal Minds did it much better in 2006 with the episode 'North Mammon' - which had better acting, a better script and was a lot more interesting and psychologically disturbing. Kill Theory has a lot of blood and a lot of screaming but not a lot of good acting, not a lot of great dialogue and not a lot of realism given how some people die..or don't die.Daniel Franzese plays Freddy who, for me, was unbearably annoying throughout the film. It's a bad sign when you spend minute after minute wishing he would shut up and die already and then being afraid that he'll be the survivor at the end and essentially be around the entire film. His hyperventilating and subsequent loud breathing was really hard to sit through as were his constant outbursts, freak outs and screams. I wanted to reach into the screen and kill him myself. He definitely downgraded the movie for me - scenes were hard to sit through because he wouldn't shut the heck up.3/10 It mildly held my attention but it wasn't anything great. There is a twist at the end that was decent I guess but the majority of the film is your usual formulaic slasher stuff and none of it is spectacular.SPOILERS - I didn't have a problem when Brent was shot and then was able to get back up to kill Freddy because he was shot on his side and may not have been fatally wounded but just pretended he was. However, I had a big problem with how Amber seemed to gain strength as her injury should have been getting worse. She was shot point blank at close range with a 9mm handgun straight to the gut - dead center. She of course immediately goes down and starts bleeding heavily and has to be dragged down to the basement where she's left dying on the floor - so when she magically stopped being fatally injured and had enough strength to not only stab Jennifer which takes some force but to then prop herself up on top of her to choke her out? Was that supposed to be insulting to my intelligence? Is there a reason why she seemed to get better as time went on from her gunshot? Even after she kills Jennifer, she doesn't collapse and die but she continues to sit up, is completely alert and then interacts with Michael, the last male standing. Had I not seen her get shot, I wouldn't have even known she was injured based on how carefree she was at the very end. As for Michael, why would he kill himself? Killing himself for Jennifer would be stupid but at least he loved her and she was his girlfriend but for Amber? He didn't even care about her - she was obsessed with him and other than a hook up, they didn't seem to have anything between them yet this guy is murdering himself for her? STUPID. That was plot motivated since Amber was the one who was going to survive at the end, not character driven because it makes no sense at all why Michael would kill himself just so that girl could live.The whole sequence at the end hurt my head it was so dumb.

I was pleasantly surprised with "Kill Theory". Obviously I read the reviews before watching and I had some doubts because I don't really care for your everyday teen slasher films. This one was better than your average slasher.The beginning I feel was a little rushed but I understand they wanted to get the killers story quickly covered before moving onto bigger things. Unfortunately if you did not pay close attention to the first 10 min. then you completely missed the entire point of the end of the movie, which by the way was a GREAT twist that I did not see coming...very well planned out. I always enjoy movies that star Agnes Bruckner and wish that there were more of them, her character is likable. The other characters were well formed and relatable with your typical good guy, bad guy of the group being obvious to the viewer. Some creative death scenes, even though some are not so believable. I don't know of many situations that you can be shot in the stomach of all areas and still be able to knock someone to the ground, sit on them and strangle them for several minutes. But it is a movie and I get the gore effect. Script was good and actors did a good job of portraying the story.Overall a good movie that I will watch again in the future, I would recommend it. :)