Simon Killer Reviews

Simon Killer leaves you uneasy long before you wonder if Simon will get caught or find a conscience for his crimes, both real and imagined.

Full Review | Original Score: 5.6/10

Although Brady Corbet is a compelling actor and succeeds at times in capturing an almost boyish charm, he's playing a nasty, unappealing and unredemptive character.

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Another terrific performance from Brady Corbet, but it's in the service of a parade of horrors that never leads anywhere interesting.

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Due to the overdone visual trickery from writer/director Antonio Campos, the movie ends up killing itself. And might as well be retitled Simon Suicide.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10

The overall sense
of chilly disengagement becomes trying, and there's a last-minute switch that suggests that Campos is trying to have his croissant and eat it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

A relentless and largely unrewarding descent into an ostensibly personal hell.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Sort of "An American Psycho's European Vacation," this indie dramatic thriller mixes sex and violence and still winds up dull.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5

An unpalatable Franco-American entrée one would like to send back to wherever it came from.

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An aesthetically fussed-over, feel-bad character study-the ugly American narrative rejiggered for Generation Hipster.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Unpleasant, but not negligible.

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Any American distributor who bothers with this one would be well advised to book it into bondage clubs, where at least half the audience is likely to enjoy pointless, masochistic experiences.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5

Self-consciousness passing for style.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

If Simon Killer's tragic drift is predictable, the seedy particulars still engross.

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The film has many elements of a thriller, but ultimately Antonio Campos's interest lies much more in profiling, yet never over-determining, his moody protagonist.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Simon Killer is as juvenile as the behaviour of its central character, but thankfully its weaker moments are reasonably scarce and for the most part the film is an interesting, if a little surface level, character study that is difficult to shake off.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Simon Killer utilizes music better than any other movie I've seen at Sundance, loud and bombastic, half the time we hear sounds as filtered through Simon's iPod earbuds.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

Simon Killer eschews easy answers and obvious characterisation and it's all the more impressive because of it.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

A sexy, seductive portrayal of one young man's downward spiral into existential Hell on the chilly Parisian streets.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

A noir-tinged, noose-tightening ordeal.

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Not for everyone, in fact generally disrecommended for anyone except those who admired Martha Marcy May Marlene.

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