Review by Quin
I hear that Dustin Mills has quite the following. His 2013 film The Ballad of Skinless Pete (now called Skinless) received a glowing review at Brutal As Hell. While he’s only been a director for a relatively short time, I went into his latest feature, Kill That Bitch, cold. Cold because I had not seen any of his previous films, but also cold because I found the title completely off-putting. But I did what any good horror fan would do and watched it anyway, because we watch everything. And as a film critic, I have to admit that it’s sometimes way more fun to write about the bad stuff. Not that I’m ever hoping that something will be bad. I tend to be ridiculously optimistic when it comes to horror movies. I expect to like everything and therefore I’m constantly disappointed. Well, after watching Kill That Bitch, at a digital screening with a cyber audience chatting feverishly, I have to do something I’ve never done. I’m going to tell you that I really disliked it, but I’m also going to recommend it.
The film opens in black and white. We hear a baby crying and there’s a bloody woman laying on the floor. A door opens and we see a man with a knife. Title page, then switch to color – what follows seems like endless scenes of nude women looking at their phones. Some get texts, some get calls. A few find time to draw or play in the flower garden. I mean, most of this feels like a bad Playboy video from the 90’s. There’s even some soft light and generic, mellow tunes playing. Even with all of the pretty naked ladies, it’s very yawn-inducing. However, this is a horror movie; remember the title? See all these pretty naked ladies? Well, somebody is killing them. But he’s nice enough to warn them by texting them first – while giving us at home a clue as to whom he might be, because his black book is bigger than that of The Fonz from Happy Days.
Kill That Bitch is a tricky film for a reviewer. It constantly borrows its imagery, making it almost completely unoriginal. The killer is always seen wearing what can be described as a cheap imitation plague mask: it looks like one of those kid’s halloween costume masks with a rubber band to hold it on. Over the eyes he wears Bono’s fly sunglasses from U2’s Zoo TV tour in 1992. But the trickiest thing of all is that it contains the dreaded deus ex machina plot device; but out of respect for Dustin Mills, that is all I will say about that.
Kill That Bitch may or may not be the movie for you. It certainly wasn’t for me. Even though I really didn’t like it and found it deeply flawed, totally unfocused, all over the place and borderline incoherent at times, it maintains a weird charm that I know some of you will love. It also really delivers the gratuitous nudity and the brutal violence. Many of you will love that as well. Its use of practical effects in a few places is great, and hearing that there was no CGI used in the film is very impressive. The film is full of weird details and weird dialogue. There’s a scene where a woman takes a book off a shelf, turns around three times and then sits down. When told to take a bath a woman actually says, “But it takes all my smells away and it takes forever to get them back.”
The reason why I am recommending this movie is not based on my viewing experience, but getting to see this at a digital viewing on the internet with a chatroom, this movie got a great reception from everybody. A few people were poking fun at it, but it was in an MST3K or Rocky Horror kinda way. These people loved this movie. Even with all of the technical difficulties that the site had, the fun being had in the chatroom was infectious. Director Dustin Mills was in there too, talking to people and answering questions. He was definitely enjoying the positive response and good for him. So, if you do end up liking this movie, I can tell you that you’ll want to buy it instead of renting it. You’ll need to watch it repeatedly to pick apart the details and make it a little less deus ex machina-eeeeeeeek.
Kill That Bitch is available now on DVD, or to rent or buy online from Indiereign.
Kill That Bitch 2013 Official Red Band Trailer 1 from Dustin Mills on Vimeo.