20 Horror Movies That Weren't What Anyone Expected

15. Kill List

Kill List
Optimum Releasing

Ben Wheatley's Kill List was sold less as a straight horror film than a thriller focused on two assassins who end up dragged into something sinister.

The trailers did suggest plenty of heightened weirdness - such as showing hitmen Jay (Neil Maskell) and Gal (Michael Smiley) firing their guns at someone or something off-screen - but shied away from revealing that Wheatley's film is actually a sly entry into the folk horror subgenre.

At its core Kill List revolves around Jay and Gal carrying out a number of assassinations, yet each of their targets reacts incredibly strangely to their deaths - most calmly welcoming it.

This is because the third act reveals that Jay and Gal have actually been ensnared in the ritual of a cult, and Wheatley enticingly decides to leave the particulars up in the air as the end credits roll.

For anyone who went into Kill List expecting a pretty straight-forward crime thriller, that third act hits like a wet fish around the face in the best way.

 
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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.