Some Guy Who Kills People

THE title suggests horror-comedy and the conspicuous executive-producer credit for John Landis certainly hints that this slasher/relationship movie may be a successful hybrid along the lines of An American Werewolf in London.

Don't get your hopes up.

With a premise geared to horror fans, this direct-to-DVD movie by director Jack Perez (Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus) valiantly tries to offer something for everyone.

Kevin Corrigan (Pineapple Express) stars as Ken, a much-victimized ice cream store clerk who bears deep physical scars and even deeper emotional ones from an attack by a group of particularly vicious jocks while in high school.

Once an aspiring comic-book artist, he now lives at home with his sardonic, chain-smoking mother (Karen Black) fantasizing about bloody revenge.

Well, maybe more than fantasizing. One by one, his high school tormentors are meeting with grisly deaths. And the murders could not be happening at a worse time for Ken. He is suddenly making the acquaintance of Amy (Ariel Gade), the 11-year-old daughter he fathered with his long-departed high school girlfriend. By another freak of fate, Ken has somehow attracted the attention of an attractive young Englishwoman (Lucy Davis of Shaun of the Dead).

Topping of the list of potentially awkward circumstances, Ken's mom just happens to be knocking boots with the town's sheriff (Barry Bostwick), the kind of small-town sleuth who doesn't miss a trick: "Most bodies have heads. Where's his head?"

If the movie was aiming for flat-out dark comedy, Bostwick proves to be its best asset. His deadpan delivery seems to be contagious among the other actors who work beside him, including the guy who plays a coroner and waxes theoretical on the weapon that deprived one victim of his noggin: "Machete? Maybe a samurai sword? That'd be cool."

But it's always a little dangerous to combine that kind of comedy with more somber drama, which results when the nervous Ken tries to work on his fathering skills.

It's difficult enough blending horror and comedy. Perez doesn't even have Landis's skill in that regard. Some Guy Who Kills People is occasionally funny, but it is never scary.

Corrigan makes for an intriguing hero, anyway. But when it comes to tying all this movie's disparate elements together, he's in over his head. 'Ö'Ö out of five

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

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Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 12, 2012 e4