I'm Not a Serial Killer (15.)
Directed by Billy O'Brien.
Starring Max Records, Christopher Lloyd, Laura Fraser, Karl Geary, Dee Noah and Christina Baldwin. 101 mins.
In American High Schools the threat of being attacked by a gun wielding spree killer is so deeply engrained that they have a set procedure for students to follow, Run – Hide – Fight, much like the Duck and Cover training school kids received in the 60s in preparation for an atom bomb attack. They also have, in this film at least, assigned therapists for students perceived to be at risk of being a serial killer.
High school is tough on John Wayne Cleaver (Records.) He finds it hard to integrate, has been diagnosed as being sociopathic, and has Ellen Page's face. Max Records was a talented child actor, most memorably in Where The Wild Things Are. After a five year break he return with an almost identikit face for alienated teen angst roles: vaguely androgynous, pale complexion, the suggestion but not the reality of acne.
Cleaver's propensity for doing school projects on serial killers has alarmed the principal and his mother (Fraser, from Breaking Bad), who has decided that maybe it might be better if he stopped helping her out preparing the cadavers at the undertaker's she runs. When a wave of gruesome murders hit their small, snowbound Minnesotan town, he decides to intervene when he suspects an elderly neighbour (Lloyd) is being targeted.
This is an example of a quirky film that somehow misses its potential. The situation never quite feels fully fleshed out, like they're not too sure what to make of it either. The film goes for a very grungy, lo fi look that is supposed to suggest grimy reality but just looks cheap; odd given it photographed by Robbie Ryan who shot Wuthering Heights and American Honey.
Directed by Billy O'Brien.
Starring Max Records, Christopher Lloyd, Laura Fraser, Karl Geary, Dee Noah and Christina Baldwin. 101 mins.
In American High Schools the threat of being attacked by a gun wielding spree killer is so deeply engrained that they have a set procedure for students to follow, Run – Hide – Fight, much like the Duck and Cover training school kids received in the 60s in preparation for an atom bomb attack. They also have, in this film at least, assigned therapists for students perceived to be at risk of being a serial killer.
High school is tough on John Wayne Cleaver (Records.) He finds it hard to integrate, has been diagnosed as being sociopathic, and has Ellen Page's face. Max Records was a talented child actor, most memorably in Where The Wild Things Are. After a five year break he return with an almost identikit face for alienated teen angst roles: vaguely androgynous, pale complexion, the suggestion but not the reality of acne.
Cleaver's propensity for doing school projects on serial killers has alarmed the principal and his mother (Fraser, from Breaking Bad), who has decided that maybe it might be better if he stopped helping her out preparing the cadavers at the undertaker's she runs. When a wave of gruesome murders hit their small, snowbound Minnesotan town, he decides to intervene when he suspects an elderly neighbour (Lloyd) is being targeted.
This is an example of a quirky film that somehow misses its potential. The situation never quite feels fully fleshed out, like they're not too sure what to make of it either. The film goes for a very grungy, lo fi look that is supposed to suggest grimy reality but just looks cheap; odd given it photographed by Robbie Ryan who shot Wuthering Heights and American Honey.
