The Killin'

Here we go again. Spoof horror. Booooo!!!!

Actually, it's not.

What?

It's only pretending to be spoof horror.

That's even cleverer.

Exactly.

Why?

Well... James (James Harris), Becky (Becky Neal) and Todd (Chris Stanton) are walking in Burnham Woods, scaring each other with slasher tales of murder in this particular spot three years ago ("Did they catch him?" "No"). James is a horror movie aficionado, with a razor-sharp sense of humour. Becky is a fun/sensible girl, which means she likes a laugh, but always needs to know whether they are lost or not. Todd acts weird so realistically that you begin to think it's time to start running.

Without exposing the ghastly youknowwhat that has to happen, even in a pretend spoof horror movie, let me say that James imagines they are being followed, which, of course, they can't be, even as night falls and (gulp!)... writer/director Kevin Powis succeeds, via an ace script and excellent performances, to keep the audience (me) on tenterhooks, never entirely playing by the rules of parody. It is closer in style to Shaun Of The Dead than Scream 4, although it's closer to itself than the memory of Norman Bates's mum.