Review by Ben Bussey
Before anyone says it: no, this is not an all-star John Grisham adaptation, and at no point does Samuel L Jackson shout, “yes they deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell!” Having said that, Sam the Man’s famous quote from that 90s courtroom drama does have a certain resonance in this no-budget, T&A-fuelled neo-grindhouse romp from writer-director Brian Williams, making his feature debut here. See, this is a movie about a woman named Sara, played by Ellie Church, an eye-catching pixie-cut blonde with a nice, big, impressive pirate ship tattoo (you didn’t think the sentence was going to end that way, did you?) Beset with a mysterious affliction, Sara is told she has only 24 hours to live, and all she wants to do with her few remaining moments on God’s green earth is to cut loose, indulge her hitherto forbidden appetites, and – above all else – get her gory freak on against those that have wronged her, and/or anyone she just might happen to feel deserves it.
I know I’m not alone when I say that I tend to approach these grindhouse/rewindhouse movies with a degree of trepidation. So many low-to-no budget productions nowadays take this approach, affecting an old school edge with a wink to the camera in the hopes of making their material seem cool, when more often than not it’s pretty bog standard (see the recent Bounty Killer, or last year’s Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman. I mean, I don’t recommend you actually see them, I’m just saying they’re good examples of bad neo-grindhouse).
Is Time To Kill necessarily a more sincere, heartfelt, accurate recreation of genuine old school exploitation? Well, I can tell you this much for sure: it keeps things way, way simpler. You could pretty much fit the entire plot on a postcard, and not too much of the refreshingly lean 70 minute running time is devoted to exploring its finer details. Here’s what you can expect for most of the movie: tits, ass, more tits and ass, a bit of gore, some trippy drug scenes, with a few more asses and tits thrown in for good measure. Whilst the title and opening scenes might seem to set Time To Kill up as a good and nasty revenge movie, once it gets going it’s really a good and sleazy skin flick. Perhaps that’s not what everyone is looking for – but for anyone with a healthy (or perhaps less than healthy) appreciation for the female form – particularly when it’s covered in nothing more than skimpy panties and tattoos – then you might just find this to be a nipple-licking good time.
Still, there’s no denying Time To Kill makes for a pretty schizophrenic viewing experience. Abandon hope all ye who enter here expecting linear narrative logic, character development and all that jive. Brian Williams clearly isn’t very interested in this, preferring to fill the bulk of the running time with stripteases, girl-on-girl action and druggy scenes. Christ, he even literally stops the story dead in its tracks midway for an ‘intermission’ sequence with some amusing fake cinema commercials. However, running converse to this we have vivid glimpses of a tragic backstory that has led Sara to her current situation, and a number of quite long-winded dialogue scenes thick with rather bleak philosophical musings on the nature of life, the universe and everything. The opening scene, for example, features one of Time To Kill’s key selling points with a cameo from Debbie Rochon – but it’s ultimately a pretty throwaway scene which adds little to proceedings and doesn’t really feel like it belongs. More scenes of this nature pop up amidst all the drugs and derriere; it’s an awkward balancing act which I don’t think the film ever gets quite right.
Then again – perhaps I just wasn’t fucked up enough when I sat down to watch this. Yes, as should probably be obvious by this point, Time to Kill is textbook midnight movie fare, custom designed be enjoyed in the wee small hours whilst under the influence of something or other. While it’s as dripping with artifice as any neo-grindhouse, it has a greater sense of style than many, cannily working its clearly miniscule budget to its advantage. Williams takes something of a pop-culture collage approach on both a visual and audial level, with judicious choices of music to fit different sequences: as well as the obligatory video nasty-era synths accompanying the revenge scenes, we have a Russ Meyer-esque barnyard frolic set to 60s psychedelic pop, a very hands-on lapdance set to sleazy ska, a bad trip set to stoner rock, and so on.
As something akin to a series of music videos, then, Time To Kill definitely works. As a movie? Well – once again, that depends on your proclivities. But when all is said and done it’s one of those real indie B-movies with just enough charm to forgive its failings; indeed, without those very failings it probably wouldn’t have quite the same charm. Neo-grindhouse may indeed be getting played out, but if filmmakers do intend to keep treading that path, they might pick up a few lessons from Time To Kill.
Time to Kill will have its world premiere this March at Horrorhound Weekend in Cincinnati, and not long thereafter it will be released on a limited edition VHS. Learn more at the Time to Kill Facebook page.
NSFW Trailer, by the way.