I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER

2016 was a year that proved beyond a doubt that Hollywood had no clue when it came to making great horror movies.  Insipid, and regurgitated plot ideas and franchises, if you wanted a horror that challenged or dared to explore new avenues, then you had to keep to the smaller independent movie companies.  

Thankfully the flip side of this was 2016 being a glorious year for inventive, thought provoking and entertaining horror movies.  For every Satanic, and  Conjuring 2, we had films such as Baskin, The Green Room, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, The Eyes of My Mother, and the list goes on and on.  

Which makes this, the first film review of 2107 on Ginger Nuts of Horror, something that hopefully keeps the great work of 2106 flowing into 2017.  Will I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER maintain the trend for great indie horror films, or will it prove to be the first stumbling block of the year?....

Based on the novel I am Not a Serial Killer  by Dan Wells (you can read our exclusive interview with Dan about the film here),  where John Wayne Cleaver is a slightly unbalanced sixteen-year-old, obsessed with serial killers and a regular helper at his Mum and Aunt's Mortuary it.  So far so normal for a sixteen-year-old.  Which would be all well good, but John is also worried that his obsession with serial killers may turn him into one. So for his own sake and the safety of those around him he lives by rigid rules to keep himself “good” and “normal”.

When somebody starts murdering people in John’s small Mid-West town, he has to investigate and risk letting his dark side out to stop the killer. But without his rules to keep him in check, he might be more dangerous than the monster he is stalking. As the icy winter tightens its grip on the community a deadly supernatural game of cat and mouse ensues...

​Based on the novel I am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells (you can read our exclusive interview with Dan about the film here),  where John Wayne Cleaver is a slightly unbalanced sixteen-year-old, obsessed with serial killers and a regular helper at his Mum and Aunt's Mortuary it.  So far so normal for a sixteen-year-old.  Which would be all well good, but John is also worried that his obsession with serial killers may turn him into one. So for his own sake and the safety of those around him he lives by rigid rules to keep himself “good” and “normal”.

When somebody starts murdering people in John’s small Mid-West town, he has to investigate and risk letting his dark side out to stop the killer. But without his rules to keep him in check, he might be more dangerous than the monster he is stalking. As the icy winter tightens its grip on the community a deadly supernatural game of cat and mouse ensues...

I am Not a Serial Killer, is an intelligent and thoughtful horror film that successfully combines scares with a sympathetic look at some emotional images.   Billy O’Brien’s adaptation of the book mixes tonal qualities from such classics as Fargo, Dexter, and Rear Window into a uniquely melancholic character study of Small town America and the oddballs who inhabit it.  With an almost languid direction and sense of pace that at first would seem more appropriate for a much hotter and steamier setting, O'Brien keeps the viewer captivated with a great sense of rhythm and quirky situations.  Even when the film takes a left turn into weird territory O'Brien's strong sense of style prevents the film from falling off the rails.  

His greatest accomplishment with the film is how he managed to maintain the strengths of the source novel.  Strong, unique characters, which are used to explore some sensitive topics, such as where is our place in the world, and how do we fit in, the lengths we would go to be with someone we love, even teenage angst and disenfranchisement are all handled with a sensitive touch.  

One of the highlights of the film is when John confronts the school bully boy at a school dance.  John's speech to him is powerful, scary with allusions to the depth of his unstableness.  And yet it is the sort of expression that everyone who has been bullied or made to feel like an outcast has wanted to give. 

“I've been clinically diagnosed with sociopathy,'  'Do you know what that means?'

'It means you're a freak,' 
'It means that you're about as important to me as a carboard box,' I said. 'You're just a thing - a piece of garbage that no one's thrown away yet. Is that what you want me to say?'

'Shut up,' said Rob. He was still acting tough, but I could see his bluster was starting to fail. He didn't know what to say.

'The thing about boxes,' I said, 'is that you can open them up. Even though they're completely boring on the outside, there might be something interesting inside. So while you're saying all of these stupid, boring things I'm imagining what it would be like to cut you open and see what you've got in there.” 


John's fear of being mentally unstable, and on the brink of becoming a serial killer is adept and treated with a delicate eye for detail.  Despite John's obvious problems, he remains a likeable character, idiosyncratic and gifted with a great sense of dark humour, balanced out by a dark undercurrent of anguish and brooding menace. 

Max Records' performance is hypnotic and mature beyond his age, to the point where he holds his own against a career-defining performance from Christopher Lloyd. Lloyds portrayal of Crowly must rank as one of the great depictions of a murder suspect.  It is both fragile and menacing, as he goes from friendly neighbour to cold black-hearted killer is a joy to watch.  As his story is revealed, the depth of pathos that Lloyd brings to the character is magnificent, to the point where you will be fighting back the tears during the films final acts.  

I am Not a Serial Killer, is a powerful movie, with a hypnotic narrative and a killer cast, it is a horror film that has a lot of heart.  If this is an indication of what is to come in 2017 form the genre then we are of to a fantastic start.  

On DVD, Blu-ray & Digital HD Monday 20th February 2017

Read our exclsuive interview with Dan Wells here