Directed by:
Brett SimmonsCinematography:
Andrew StrahornComposer:
Andrew Morgan SmithCast:
Fran Kranz, Alyson Hannigan, Brittany S. Hall, Jenna Harvey, Sara Catherine Bellamy, Patrick Walker, Keith David, Thomas P. Vitale, Isaiah LaBorde (more)Plots(1)
You Might Be the Killer opens with a bang. Screams, gore, and slasher mayhem tear across the screen with vibrant title cards counting out the total number of dead counselors (current score: A lot). Sam (Fran Kranz), the head counselor at this remote camp, is safely cooped up in a cabin with a working cell phone, but instead of contacting the police, he calls his friend Chuck (the always-delightful Alyson Hannigan) in a panic. Chuck is well-versed in slasher movie tropes and leads Sam through all the necessary steps to survive the night while also helping him remember each step that has led to this point. Told from the perspective of the third act looking back upon the horrors and plot twists through flashback, it’s a full reversal of the beats one expects in this subgenre. Rather than endearing us to the characters slowly so we fear for their deaths, we’re shown their deaths almost immediately upon meeting them. Ultimately, instead of being about one-dimensional sexy teens meeting their demise, it’s about the joys of both the kill and the genre itself. Similarly, the film’s secrets are unveiled in an unexpected order: we learn the killer’s identity before we’re told who’s dead. But really, this reveal is just the start of the fun. (Fantastic Fest)
(more)Reviews (3)
There is nothing like watching a horror movie that doesn’t take itself seriously and benefits from this fact as much as possible. Here, they passed with flying colors. A stylish small-scale horror film, which makes fun of everything and does it pretty well. Only Alyson Hannigan didn’t look like a slag in HIMYM (How I met Your Mother), but she portrayed the horror professional brilliantly. Was it intention or her age?
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There is an effort here to make fun of the clichés of the Summer Camp Slasher horror movie like they tried to do with The Final Girls, however, this movie turned out to be just as awful as that, it just does not work as either a horror or a comedy. Most of the time however it is just tiresome. I will give an extra point to You Might Be the Killer just because the creators were not afraid to be a bit gory, unlike the makers of The Final Girls, who held back on the gore to make it more accessible, in order to gain a hypocritical PG-13 certificate.
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The American film You Might Be the Killer manages to grab your attention at first glance, you'll be entertained by how slightly different it is, and how it is an original take on a classic. It soon becomes clear where the problems lie, and then the best you get is really a pretty standard slasher film, which is maybe a bit long in places and shows that a good idea could not be turned into a great film. But a good film? Yes.
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