Intensity: 🩸🩸out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Alix Austin and Kier Siewart
The sexy body horror thriller film Kill Your Lover manifests a literal toxic relationship between a mismatched British couple who let things go a bit too far. This feature from The Overlook Film Festival will make you squirm uncomfortably. Come for the steamy sex scenes, then stay for the awkwardly painful dissolution of a partnership in body-altering collapse.
The adage that opposites attract needs an addendum. Opposites can also repel. Lovers as a magnet metaphor has some very interesting applications. When it works, the magnets slap together and are nearly inseparable. When you flip one over, the magnets rebound and eject the other one like a cannon. Kill Your Lover pulses with the energy of a relationship in its dying days, quite literally.
This is the debut feature film for the directing partnership of Alix Austin and Kier Siewart. At the Overlook Q&A session, they joked that this film is autobiographical, but you can sense there is real emotional pain they must have gone through together at some point. This feels like a stage play. This movie occurs in the couple’s London flat and almost exclusively focuses on the two protagonists. In between bouts of vicious violence, there are lengthy expositions where we learn the full history of these two lovers… and how it all went wrong.
The Cast of Kill Your Lover:
- Paige Gilmour plays Dakota, a punk rocker with a wildly free-spirited attitude. Her rock and roll lifestyle is ending as she is transitioning awkwardly into the working world.
- Shane Quigley-Murphy plays Axel, a big, handsome fella with a more conservative outlook. He is smitten with Dakota’s wild persona and struggles to rein in Dakota’s casualness.
- May Kelly plays Rose, Dakota’s best friend, who urges Dakota to end their relationship.
- Joshua Whincup plays Ricky, an ambulance technician called to the apartment.
- Chloe Wigmore plays Carol, an ambulance technical called to the apartment.
A Short Synopsis:
The audience discovers how Dakota and Axel meet. In Dakota’s room, there is a clear spark of attraction between the two. They also know they are an odd match, and it is clear, even from the outset, that these two are more different than they are alike. Axel, stark naked in Dakota’s apartment, finds the appeal of this young and rebellious woman intoxicating. She’s the bad girl, and he’s the square. Dakota casts doubt as to whether they would work out well together, but as a one-night stand, he is a handsome catch. A night of wild lovemaking proves that, at least sexually, they make a good pair. So begins an ill-fated relationship.
When we next see Dakota, she is being counseled by her best friend, Rose. It is years later, and gone are Dakota’s dramatic makeup and riot-girl hair and outfits. She determines that this will be the day she breaks up with him. Axel returns home early from work, wracked with a terrible illness, but remains stealthy and unheard by the two women planning on how the separation will work. He eavesdrops on their conversation and attempts to play it cool when Rose leaves. He still wants to make their relationship work, and this additional stress makes his condition worse.
Axel pleads with Dakota that he wants to see what they jointly do to solve their issues. She isn’t ready to give the breakup speech just yet, and they have some sweaty, awkward make-up sex, which is in stark contrast to the earlier scene of romantic passion seen earlier in the movie. Rather than a sexual climax, Axel vomits on Dakota, and when he removes his shirt, his illness manifests in black veiny tendrils running all over his torso. His hands now also have a caustic property that burns Dakota, who puts aside her breakup message and helps Axel into the bathtub, and she calls for an ambulance.
The film enters the phase of background reference. In the intervening time between their meeting and Axel’s illness, we see how bad the relationship has become. What was an adventurous and exciting relationship devolved into a battle of wills. Montages of arguments, accusations, and grievances pour out onto the screen. Flashing back to the present, Axel’s condition has grown monstrous. The toxic relationship has fully manifested, and now Dakota is going to have to fight her way out of the situation.
Evaluation of Kill Your Lover:
The Relationship:
This is a potent story. It’s stressful, and it’s heartbreaking. Initially, the story had the relationship wholly unbalanced, with Axel clearly in the wrong. They re-wrote the script with Axel becoming a more sympathetic character. This bad relationship had both parties contributing to the failure, but they weren’t always bad times. What happened? Axel has control issues and wants to mold Dakota into something he’s more comfortable with. Dakota is a rogue element who doesn’t want to become a caged bird. The major difference is that she knows the relationship is a bust, and he still thinks it is salvageable, though clearly, neither of them is happy.
The sensuality:
This is a heavily sexualized film. There are multiple sex scenes in the movie that probably take up a quarter of the run time. In addition to the awkwardness of watching a relationship fall apart, watching a lot of intimacy on the big screen might make some folks uncomfortable. Dakota likes BDSM, which makes it that much more racy. The scenes are really well-shot, though. The cinematographer makes the camera movement kinetic and lively. In pornography, you will usually get stationary shots, which allows the viewer… well, you know. This is done much more artistically, and when it wants to be loving, you sense that. When it wants to be kinky, it is that, too, without feeling exploitative. And, when the sex is gross and potentially horrifying, they change the color palette to a grey-green, which effectively takes you out of the sexy sensation.
The Performances:
The most important reason for this movie working as well as it does is the chemistry between Gilmour and Quigley-Murphy. There is real chemistry here. Initially, Axel is warmly endearing and puppy-dog-ish, and Dakota holds the power as the cooler and worldly rock star. The story arcs flip as the characters age, though, and this really works. I’m particularly impressed with Gilmour, who only has one other screen credit to her name. She dances the delicate line of being the one to break things off. Her performance requires some heavy narrative lifts. The burden is on her, and she is the initiator. The montage, more than the monster, reveals why this breakup has to happen.
A small side note for a side performance. May Kelly has been in a whole bunch of awful Jagged Edge productions, with films like Mega Lightning, Dinosaur Hotel 3, and Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. (Yikes!) Kill Your Lover represents a huge artistic step up for this actress, and for her limited time on screen, she was quite good in this movie. I hope this gets her into better roles going forward.
The Production:
Kill Your Lover had some lovely cinematography. The look is particularly impressive in the tight shooting location for the film. When an intimate discussion was needed, often times they would use doorways as frames for a conversation just on the other side of the doorway, which was a nice thematic touch. The color palette, as noted, also did a fine job of shifting from the golden glow of the early part of their relationship to the colder, desaturated conditions and a sickly grey-green pallor for the closing act.
Unfortunately, the makeup effects don’t work well. For a body horror film, they needed to sell the monstrous change. The directors in the Q&A referenced their love of Cronenberg and French Extremism, and frankly, the gore effects couldn’t achieve that standard. The veins on Axel had more of an appearance of a tattoo than extreme varicose veins. I would have liked some decaying flesh. Decades of zombie films should have given some good reference material. The directors noted that the disease is a metaphorical and fantastical condition, so the disease is meant to be abstract. Still, something with a little more gore would have been appropriate.
Also, to indicate the passage of time, they changed the characters’ looks. For Dakota, it worked, as noted above. For Axel, though, I think they gave him a wig and his beard was odd. His beard had two tones to it and looked like a beard application. This is the kind of thing that happens with a short shoot schedule. What I think they should have done was to let Quigley-Murphy grow out a beard and then give him a shave and haircut and shoot the earlier scenes out of sequence.
Lastly, a preposterous sequence involving a skull pulled me out of the movie. The filmmakers wanted to go over the top, but it felt cartoonishly impossible. For a movie dealing with serious things, it felt like a gag. Though I think they were going for a demonstration of power, it didn’t work for me.
Conclusion:
Kill Your Lover is a solid thriller filled with great character arcs and an easy-to-appreciate relationship story. Oddly, the relationship story was enough for me. They had that part of this movie nailed down and fully understood. I also thought the sensual parts of the film were tastefully done and appropriately erotic. However, the fantastical horror part of the movie was less well conceived, dragging the evaluation down a little. There is great charisma from both of the leads. Quigley-Murphy looks like a natural action hero star, and Gilmour has an edgy indie film quality to her. I also expect big things from Austin and Siewert going forward.
Kill Your Lover has not been rated by the MPAA. It would push the R-rating to the edges due to the amount of nudity and sex in it. Possibly, this would be qualified as NC-17. There is a fair amount of violence and gore as well. This is not a film for young teenagers, partly for the sexual content, but also because the relationship theme is one that adults understand. Younger audiences likely won’t appreciate or understand the gravity of the story. This is one that you relate to from your own histories. It’s a compact 77 minutes of run time, and that feels right. This is near the end of the festival run for the film. The Nort American release date is T.B.D.
Review by Eric Li
