Make a Killing: A Completely Unbiased Review



I finally got a chance to see Make a Killing (2004), the micro-budget horror-comedy I had some small part in writing. I’m relieved to say it doesn’t suck. Co-directors Chris and Vanessa Magyar did a good job making an entertaining short picture with the resources available to them.

The concept of the film, which came out of a post-B-Fest 2004 conversation (participants included myself, Chris Holland, Chris Magyar, Lodore Brown, Ken Begg, Paul Smith and probably a couple people I’m forgetting), is that the homicidal maniacs you see in movies like Friday the 13th (1980) and Halloween (1978) must have help. The psycho can kill someone in a room by inviceration, hide the body in a closet, and when the next victim comes along the room is completely clean and the body pops out of the closet at the exact right moment. It’s tough to imagine Jason getting down on his hands and knees and scrubbing the floor clean, so we have to assume someone else did that for him. We imagined something like a pit crew, who rush from scene to scene setting up props and cleaning up excessive gore (except when the gore is needed to scare somebody). The crew tracks the victims, gives the killer rides in a golf cart to where he needs to be to surprise them, and then takes care of the aftermath.



From that core idea Chris Magyar decided to actually put together a short movie, which his wife providing the technical know-how. Because of budget, casting, and logistical limitations the end product relies more on the mock documentary form more than I would have imagined from the ideas we were discussing all those months ago, but I’m still very impressed with what Chris and Vanessa achieved.



Make a Killing follows a few weeks in the lives of the employees of Assisted Killing Amalgamated. After their latest client gets killed by an intended victim (a virgin, of course), A.K.A. takes on Randall (Erik Edborg), an incoherent maniac with a $6 million inheritance he wants to blow on a sorority house killing spree. The members of A.K.A. include CEO John Simpson (Brian Colonna), Director of Operations Sylvia Chase (Hannah Duggan) image consultants Fran Gunderson (Jeni Rinner) and Joshua Gorge (Gregory Webster), transportation specialist Steven Grabolowski (Evan Weissman) and his intern Bobby (Ryan Trost), and infiltration specialist Lisa Slade (Lodore Brown). Together they try to come up with a winning image and workable plan for Randall.

In the end credits I get a “Story by” credit, which I think is pretty funny because Chris makes it sound like we went through Screenwriter’s Guild arbitration. In fact I just did a couple runs through the first draft to add a bunch silly gags, while at the same time trying to add as many words that I think are inherently funny, like "bactine" and "rhubarb." I was quite proud of this gag, where we see a montage of John with some of his famous evil clients:



A rare joke that has actually gotten funnier since I wrote it.

I was a bit surprised by the ending, which was not like any of the written endings I had seen. According to the commentary on the DVD it was conceived and filmed just two weeks before the film's premiere in Denver. I suspect Chris was watching Man Bites Dog (1993) when he came up with it.

Okay, so I can't remotely claim to be an unbiased opinion on Make a Killing. If you have any interest in slasher flicks or micro-budget filmmaking, I suggest you check it out. You can order it on DVD, or visit the official website. I've also got some more pictures on my Flickr page.

Posted: Mon - July 26, 2004 at      

©