Ben Wheatley’s Kill List has claimed the top spot on USA Today’s list of the century’s 75 best horror films. Meanwhile, viewers can stream the thriller with an AMC+ subscription, according to Rotten Tomatoes’ viewing guide.
Although the film arrived in Britain in 2011, the ranking labels it 2012, the year of its American release.
The story follows a former soldier who takes work as a hitman before his jobs become strange. However, the film’s mix of drama, crime and horror makes it harder to pin down than that setup suggests.
Ben Wheatley wrote Kill List for actors he already knew
Behind the scenes, Wheatley and co-writer Amy Jump built their script around performers rather than holding a casting search. Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring and Michael Smiley lead the cast.
Instead, the team filmed a sample to show the people funding the project.
Wheatley told Den of Geek, “And all the script was written specifically for these people, so there was no casting in the traditional sense, we just shot a five minute, six minute chunk of Kill List, and we showed the financiers that.”
As a result, the pitch offered something concrete, meaning the backers could see the actors together before agreeing to move forward.
Kill List began as Ben Wheatley’s low-budget backup plan
Elsewhere in that interview, Wheatley explained that he had written scripts after his feature, Down Terrace. Among them, Kill List required the least money to make.
Rather than wait for a project, he kept an option he could produce.
He said, “If no one was going to fund anything else, we could have done that film anyway.”
Ultimately, outside funding arrived through a scheme involving Warp X, Film4 and regional support. The production then shot its story in 18 days.
