Review: Kill For Me


Katie Cassidy (from the remakes of “When a Stranger Calls”, “Black Christmas”, and “A Nightmare on Elm Street”) stars as a troubled young woman who is trying to put the disappearance of her former roommate behind her and move on. She requests a new roommate and college girl Tracy Spiridakos answers the call. Cassidy has a thug ex-boyfriend (who may know something about the roommate’s disappearance), and Spiridakos has a drunk for a father (Donal Logue), so it’s not long before they form a quasi-Sapphic bond. When Spiridakos saves Cassidy from the violent wrath of her ex, she calls for Cassidy to help her likewise. And that’s just the beginning of this twisty little yarn as one wonders whether to take things at face value or not.

 

Directed by Michael Greenspan (“Wrecked” with Adrien Brody, who gets ‘thanks’ in the credits in this one), this 2013 thriller really ought to have been a TV movie. It looks like a Canadian TV movie, the plot is strictly run-of-the-mill Canadian TV movie stuff. But there’s just enough lesbian content to have probably kept this from being a TV movie. Unfortunately, Greenspan and his co-writers Christopher Dodd and Christian Forte (the latter having scripted Kevin Spacey’s OK directorial debut “Albino Alligator”) don’t really give us anything else, and even the lesbian content is somewhat mild, and eventually dropped altogether. So what has this film got? Nice swampy scenery that for once means a Canadian film that could pass for an American one. It also has a more than decent, elusive performance by character actor Donal Logue, and hints towards interesting back-stories for the lead characters that are unfortunately not nearly well-enough explored. That’s about it, I’m afraid, and it’s pretty lethargically directed too.

 

Katie Cassidy (daughter of David, apparently) is especially uninspiring in the lead, Tracy Spiridakos (best known for TV’s “Revolution”) isn’t much better, and there’s nothing you haven’t seen here before and miles better.

 

Donal Logue kept me barely awake, as his character could be just as bad as he’s believed to be, or he could just as easily be entirely innocent. It’s only near the end that we find out. The whole thing felt like a slightly more risqué episode of “Pretty Little Liars”, but without the elusive, conspiratorial machinations that make that teen-oriented show slightly above the disposable pack. It probably wants to be “Wild Things” (with a touch of “Strangers on a Train” and its ‘criss-cross’ murders), but the cast and black humour just aren’t there. Nudity might’ve helped, but not much.

 

Rating: C

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