“The Killing Gene” aka “W Delta Z” aka “WAZ”
One of my favorite filmmakers working today is without a doubt David Fincher. In my opinion, he hasn´t made a bad movie yet. And when I say that, I also include the much maligned “Alien 3”. As a matter of fact, after the first one, part 3 is my favorite in the “Alien”-quadrilogy (I didn´t even know there was such a word as “quadrilogy” before I bought the DVD box set). I think it´s great and the main reason is because it´s definitely the darkest film in the series. The first one was pretty harrowing but the second one is just a straight-up shoot-´em-up-in-space and I´m not too excited about that. The third one, however… It´s so dark and bleak that I am certain that it could drive even that horribly happy preacher family from that creepy show “Seventh Heaven” into a state of alcoholism and depression. That´s how dark it is, fiends! And that´s why I like it. ´Cause I´m a pretty dark guy. “A loner, Dottie. A rebel”, to quote Pee Wee Herman (not very often you get the chance to do that).
However, “Alien 3” is nothing when compared to Fincher´s magnum opus, the amazing “Seven”, or “7even” or whatever the hell they insisted on calling it when it was released. I hate it when they try to incorporate a number into the title. The worst example of this has to be the British gangster movie “Layer Cake” which was promoted as “L4yer Cake”! What the hell was going through their minds when they came up with that one? “People love numbers, don´t they? We should try to get the number 4 in there somewhere… Why, you ask? Because the cake has 4 layers, stupid!” I hope somebody was fired because of that campaign.
Anyway, I went off on a tangent there. Sorry about that. Back to “Seven”. It really is an amazing film and it is easy to forget that because your mind and memory has been polluted with all the rip-off´s and bad imitations it spawned. I don´t need to explain anymore. You all have seen it. If you haven´t, you shouldn´t be sitting here reading about it. In that case, you should get off your internet-surfing butt and watch it! The reason I´m rambling about it here is because recently I saw a movie that reminded me of it: “The Killing Gene” aka “W Delta Z” aka “WAZ”, depending on where you live in the world. A movie that was pretty damn good. It´s not a masterpiece by any means, but it´s definitely a worthy addition to the serial killer genre. Before watching it, I thought it was gonna be a mediocre mix between “Seven” and “Saw”. I bet you too will think that after hearing what it´s about: A series of deaths have started occurring in New York; Some are being found mutilated while others have an equation wΔz = Cov (w,z) = ßwzVz carved onto their skin. As police investigate they discover each victim was forced to choose between sacrificing their own life or a loved one´s life.
Doesn´t sound that great, huh? But one thing that tipped me off to that this one may actually be above the standard straight-to-video-serial-killer-fare was the fact that the lead is played by fellow Swede Stellan Skarsgård and he´s actually one hell of an actor. He´s managed to carve out quite a career for himself in Hollywood. He alternates between appearing super-serious arthouse movies like Lars Von Trier´s “Breaking The Waves” and “Dogville” and then popping up in the REAL masterpieces of the world, like Renny Harlin´s fantastic giant shark movie from 1999: “Deep Blue Sea” (I´m serious. If you could see my face now, you´d see a stone cold man. It´s great!) and John Frankenheimer´s “Ronin”. In other words: a pretty sweet set-up. In this one Stellan gets to show us how a crooked cop should be played! One of the best things about this film is definitely his performance as Eddie Argo, the cop who gets a new partner (Melissa George, who´s definitely carving out her own corner in horrorland after appearing in both “The Amityville Horror” and “30 Days of Night”) assigned to solve the case. I dare you to take your eyes off Skarsgård! It´s impossible and he´s smart enough to know what it is that makes a character interesting. You´re never quite sure on which side Argo is. He plays him as he´s carrying a tremendous weight on his shoulders and he has no problem in allowing criminals to be killed by other crooks. Turning the other way isn´t a stretch for Argo and this hint of crookedness suits Skarsgård perfectly! He´s bitter, it´s hard to hear what he´s saying because of his extremely raspy voice, which comes from a life of too much whisky, loneliness and cigarettes. In other words: your friendly neighborhood cop.
The other thing that makes “The Killing Gene” worth watching is the world in which it takes place. It´s supposed to be New York City but it is slightly more surreal than the New York we´re used to seeing (after watching the “Making of” on the DVD I was pretty impressed by the fact that for a few location shots, the whole film was filmed in Dublin! Good job, I say!). Many streets are empty and the darkness seems pretty damn oppressive. It´s definitely in the vein of “Seven” in that it portrays the city as a god damn living hell! You kinda get the feeling that every citizen here is either dealing crack, smoking it, raping someone and/or killing them. The cinematography is great! Apparently, it´s a Danish fella that´s responsible for it, which is nice to know that there´s still hope for Denmark. They can´t be riding on that tired “Dogme”-hype forever. Naturally, there are some twists and there are some turns (as there always are in these “Seven”-type of movies) and I´ll admit that they´re not that hard to second guess but hey, you can´t get everything! You can´t expect them to catch the killer halfway through the film like Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman did. “The Killing Gene” at least manages to keep the momentum going and it never gets boring.
So, if you find yourself waking up a day with that damn irritating sun shining in your eyes or if you find yourself outside, holding hands with your girl while whistling “Raindrops keep falling on my head” and picking flowers, this is the film to see! It´s got everything to bring you out of that happiness-fluke: crooked cops, drugs, drug dealers, murdered senior citizens, gang rapes and torture… That´s more up your alley, right? So, check it out. You owe it to Stellan. After all, he was in “Deep Blue Sea”. Did I mention that?
Until next time, fiends: stay ghoul & take scare!
Thomas