Directed by: Tomas Gorkic
Written by: Tomas Gorkic
Cast: Nina Ivanisin, Lotos Sparovec, Nika Rozman, Sebastian Cavazza, Manca Ogorevc
The Josh Chop: Let me just start off by saying that I LOVE a great horror film. I was pretty excited to have the opportunity to review Killbillies, because it was the first Slovenian horror flick made! Reading the synopsis I was almost afraid to watch the film, because it was compared to films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. I put on my big boy undies and watched it anyway.
We are taken to a bar somewhere in Slovenia. A group of four women sit around a table talking about their day, their weekend plans and such. They all seem to be ready to party in this almost vacant bar and order this new drink that is guaranteed to get you wasted. The bottle poured is a clear bottle with a handmade label showing a spiral. We don’t know what it is, but it really gets everyone pumped for a fun night after the first shot of many.
The four women enjoy their time except something seems off with Zina. Zina (Ivanisin) is the main character in Killbillies. Zina teeters between a bad-ass chick with a chip on her shoulder and an amateur model who wants to make it big. Zina enjoys her drink with her friends, but the night is suddenly ruined when a drunk man approaches her with unwanted advances. She’s not some dumb bimbo, so when this guy tries to have his way with her she quickly shows him who’s boss. Zina storms out of the bar and tells her friends she needs to get out of this shit-hole bar.
The next day Zina meets up with another model and photographer to go to a remote photo-shoot. Mia (Rozman) is a blooming model who won’t shut up. Mia talks a lot about herself and the gigs she’s booked. She goes on and on about how great she’s doing and how magical it was working with a certain photographer. Mia has been in magazines and plans on getting big real soon. She’s not entirely annoying, but you start to see that Zina is bored and unimpressed with her chit chat. When the photographer, Blitcz (Cavazza) is shown starting to get annoyed by the chatter, you start to see why Mia is annoying.
On their drive to this photo-shoot in the country, Blitcz stops off the side of the road where an old woman and teenage boy sit selling liquor and other crap. The boy sits with an accordion seemingly catatonic. When Blitcz starts to make small talk with the woman, he is surprised by her reaction. She’s mean and spiteful telling him he can’t buy her liquor because it’s made for a REAL man, not a little sniveling snot like him. He goes to leave with an eye roll and mutters under his breath something like Stupid hillbillies.
As they continue their drive, the shots are actually really beautiful! We see the mountains and forests of Slovenia. It makes you want to visit this place, because it’s so pretty! They arrive at their destination and meet up with Dragica (Ogorevc) a well known make up artist for the shoot. The shoot is soon underway and all of a sudden we see Francl (Sparovec) and his buddy walking down the hill toward them. Francl is an ugly mofo who looks like someone splashed acid on the side of his face. He tells the group that they are on his land and to leave. When Blitcz tries to ease the confrontation, things go bad real fast and Francl and his minion attack the group.
The story goes on but is really quite boring. Things happen too quickly and the group when awoken in a “dungeon” seem to know they will die there. Some bad things happen, and we find out why it’s important that they were kidnapped in the first place. The struggle to get free of this hellhole never felt like a real struggle. I don’t know, maybe I’ve been watching too much of “The Walking Dead” or something, but I want to see some real struggle and fear when I watch a horror movie. And I never felt it here. Bad things happen, and there is some violence in it. But I’ve seen worse in shows that aren’t even horror films.
All in all the film was disappointing to me since I never felt afraid or jumpy. Killbillies is only an hour and a half, so I’m sure the pacing was necessary to move things along. But I would have liked to had more from the characters. Francl was ugly as hell, but he never felt scary to me and at times I felt his character was trying too hard to be “scary.” The ending was very ironic and super lame. I’d say Killbillies is an ok film to get someone into horror films who doesn’t have the stomach for something like the “Saw” films, but like I said, I’ve seen scarier things on TV shows.
