A criminal is released on parole after serving time for an incident while mountain climbing when he cut the rope that sent three of his friends falling to their doom. This culminates in a night where the man released sets up a game with a group of affluent, yuppie soon-to-be college graduates staying at the home of their host's father's posh summer place. During the evening, the kids, who seemed to be in high spirits and anxious for the prominent future, will be given a choice, one will be able to survive while the others must perish, cut off as the killer's friends were, his testing a "kill theory" where he sees how much one values his/her life, willing to sacrifice their own in order to make it out alive. So we watch as they pick apart each other, loyalties divided, betrayal and backstabbing, seeing first hand the true nature of many when facing extinction. We see a gun juggled around as it controls the possibility of who lives and dies. We see attempts at manipulation, while the mastermind behind this whole orchestrated scenario offers others a chance to gain an advantage, also denying anyone an escape from the premises. Six o'clock is the deadline and as the clock ticks, violence and desperation escalates until nearly everyone is dead in one way or another. A shovel is used to bash a face in until it's a bloody pulp. A fireplace poker is plunged into an eyeball and through the skull. A bear trap goes through one victim trying for an ax stuck in a tree stump. A knife is used to stab into the stomach and leg, one particular moment revealing a dark truth about how love can fall by the wayside when time is almost up. What does happen is we do see how true love reigns at the end when one does give his life for another after being double-crossed by who he perceived to be his one-and-only. Like the Saw movies and the genre as a whole where we see humankind's true nature when facing death first-hand, "Kill Theory" follows a select group of individuals and how they react to a crisis. Eventually, among them is one who is willing to pursue whatever lengths necessary to save his/her hide, while another character shows their true colors in a startling, abrupt manner, catching a victim off-guard because the one attacked has no reason to expect his assailant. Mind games are employed as a means to secure a weapon or motivate the more vulnerable to improve their situation. I think movies like "Kill Theory" and "Saw" series will always appeal to a certain crowd who enjoy seeing characters turn on each other, tearing each other apart through actions and words, while hoping to escape the killer's trap(s), falling prey to their own frailties and weaknesses, attempting to resolve a very difficult dilemma which has them in a stranglehold. As is often the case, the killer is always one step ahead of his playthings, the obstacles removing any ability to flee from their captor. Really attractive cast has familiar faces like Agnes Bruckner, Daniel Franzese, and Taryn Manning. Kevin Gage(Chaos)is yet again a serial killer whose face is barely shown, his voice both cold-blooded and to-the-point. As expected, there are a lot of spats and melodramatic relationship problems which play out as the story unfolds and body count rises.
Review of Kill Theory
