"Kill For Me" (Movie, Canada, 2013) - Major Spoilers!

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"Kill For Me" (Movie, Canada, 2013) - Major Spoilers!

Postby pkristen » Tue Aug 27, 2013 8:19 am

Okay, I'm warning you right now that I'm totally going to talk about this movie in major detail, including the ending. so if you want to avoid spoilers, go away and come back after you've seen the film!

Summary:
The movie starts with college student Amanda trying to cope with the mysterious disappearance of her best friend and platonic roommate Natalie. The third (again platonic) roommate points out that they can't afford to pay for an empty room and thus reserved Hailey moves in. Amanda's ex-boyfriend violently proclaims his innocence in Natalie's disappearance even though she somehow feels he has something to do with it. When he won't take 'no' for an answer, Hailey steps in and murder, abusive baggage and betrayal starts to come into both young women's lives.

Review:
So, why did I actually check out this horror-thriller movie?

Well, it starts with the fact that I'm a fan of the DC comic book character Black Canary. Unfortunately, she only appears when her boyfriend/husband Green arrow is around. Luckily, though, I like the really series "Arrow" and Katie Cassidy as the potential heroine definitely has my attention.

So when I stumbled across reference to her appearance as Amanda in this movie in a lesbian-media website, my curiousity was piqued. And when I saw that Traci Spiridakos was presumably the other half of the lesbian interaction as Hailey, I decided I needed to check it out purely on gut instinct. I admit I considered them to be a hot combo so it couldn't be all bad, could it?

It took me a bit but I finally ordered the DVD off of Amazon and even though I went out of my way to buy it, I found that I wasn't that anxious to actually watch it. Mainly because I was concerned not only about the general quality of the movie but the lack of a lot of references in lesbian websites made me a little cautious. Plus, I knew very well that in the horror-thriller genre, if you're not the main character, chances are that you're a victim or a killer.

But I finally cleared an evening and popped it in (of course with plenty of work to multi-task with in case I found it an unbearable watch.)

In general, I actually thought it was well-executed in both acting and as a movie. But I watched too many forensics documentaries that I couldn't help but be distracted by the analytical side of my brain that I couldn't lose myself in the show.

HOWEVER, I've long had reservations about any media project where all of the creative forces are men and they are producing stories that have lesbians in them. I'll admit there are a couple that I gladly support and promote, but it does tend to be a very high-risk thing to watch or read.

So what did I think about the 'lesbian' aspect of the movie?

I fully admit that I liked how they got together before everything went to a point of no return. But I also know that as a horror-thriller movie, characters are supposed to act crazy, suspicious and be expendable. Unfortunately, it happened to be Hailey, emotionally terrorizing Amanda. But Hailey had the baggage of being abused (and presumably molested) by her father, so her actions are understandable.

Unfortunately, though, this gets into the area of insensitivity about LGBT media history where lead characters that you like are treated horribly and killed off. While the movie does end with a moment of closure and forgiveness between the women, Hailey still dies which makes sense from a purely genre perspective.

And I'm very sure there are LGBT people who are bristling at the idea of a young woman having lesbian tendencies because of bad experiences with men. That's not an issue for me personally because my philosophy was never about why someone becomes LGBT as much as how do they handle it when they realize they're LGBT. And I honestly think Hailey is a commendable character before the movie goes into horror-thriller territory.

So I finally resolved to view the movie as being a decent effort for what it is, but it could have been sooooo much better if a few things had happened instead:

1. End the movie before Amanda's psycho boyfriend comes back with a gun and pushes things to that point of no return. And add a scene where Amanda and Hailey actually go on a date where they have sex some place besides the bathroom.

But that is short-sighted given the full story-arc of the movie so the next best thing to do:

2. At the bare minimum, have Hailey survive at the end and Amanda covers for her so she doesn't go to jail.

3. Even better, do #2 and have the two women romantically reconcile at the end. And yes, still have a date and have sex in some place besides the bathroom.
pkristen
 
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