“Killerwood” is yet another Greek film showcasing at The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival. It is the third festival film I have watched about a film making a film a seemingly favourite modern Greek film genre.
On one level it is intriguing because it focuses on the production of a film including many of its aspects in a semi-comedic fashion. If you are a novice to the technicalities of film production you will encounter here the role of a director, producer, costume designer, set designer, film crew and of course the actors. Not intentionally educational mind you but done in an amusing way and a mandatory 101 course for students of film production.
Then there is the plot. An aspiring young director enamoured with slasher films directs a film about a serial killer who has murdered 17 people in and around Athens using a variety of methods. The character Elena is to play the role of a journalism student investigating the murders under the premise they may be those of a serial killer. She is living with Yiannis an aspiring young filmmaker. Viewers watch the preproduction and rehearsals encountering several brilliantly performed characters including a massively gregarious and overstressed trans costume designer, a producer tired of begging for money to produce the film, a blind theatre actor who agrees to play the part of a psychoanalyst and of course a temperamental director who is hospitalized for a suicide attempt jump off a roof as the lead actress may be joining a Lanthimos production and leaving his production. A multitude of zippy one liners punctuate the film.
During the production mysterious events transpire. Anonymous deliveries of bloody knives, packages of guts and spleens, taunting telephone calls and texts and unexplained deliveries of flowers. At this point where does the production of a movie start being replaced by chilling reality narrated by spooky telephone calls. One anonymous text states its sender is making his own movie while watching production of the movie. A brilliant blending of fiction and reality both confusing and delightful. And the cast and crew is being watched but is this extraneous import of “reality” merely part of the production of the movie?
Director Christos Massalas has crafted a brilliant film somewhat like an Agatha Christie whodunit melded with any nature of psychokiller films.
Watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/embed/BRSxZHlNj6g
RKS 2024 Film Rating 93/100.
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