Cult Killer (2024)

Cult Killer, the title itself explains the film well which is about abused women seeking revenge on pedophiles and gang rapists. Certainly, some people will straight away say that this film isn’t for them but even if the story doesn’t instantly turn you away, there’s a more severe warning when one considers the director, a gentleman by the name of Jon Keeyes. There is no reason whatsoever that Keeyes couldn’t make a powerful, important, timely, and deeply disturbing film about such a dark subject matter, according to his biography where he states that he makes a good film once in a while. However, if you look at his Wikipedia page, several films are released every year along with only one paragraph that seems to be written by him himself or his PR. So one wouldn’t expect his films to be very sophisticated. And indeed, such is the case of the film Cult Killer (2024).

Every film has its strengths and weaknesses, but what tends to mess up Cult Killers the most is the fact that it constantly wants to be about sexual abuse. There’s a great deal that can be said about the movie that is mechanically well done. It is shot in a manner that is appropriately bleak and wintery, though never depressingly so. The plot races forward, especially once you get past Roughly the first half hour or so, and even taking into account there is a series of flashbacks that do not seem to contribute much to the plot but are there just to give Antonio Banderas more screen time. But, come on, Banderas is a great cast for a low-budget film so it makes sense. His acting is solid across the board, but the standout performances belong to the two lead villains of the film Olwen Fouéré who plays Dottie Evans, and Nick Dunning who plays her husband City Dunning. Dunning is fantastically sadistic and off the rails, and provides some semblance of entertainment value, but Fouere, who is an outstanding actress, is more or less a cold and terrifying entitled mother figure who has no guilt in being the leader of a sex trafficking operation.

If one thing can be said of films like this, it’s that they do function to highlight students in real life and their resilience to abuse doesn’t come from seeking inspiration from the films in the dumpster they come from originally. The practical reality of such students becomes absurd.

Rather, Cult Killer is rather entertaining, mindless, ghastly action film but in some parts degenerates into a horrendous narration of several people being captured, confined in the sexually permeated dark chambers or hidden spaces for several days. It’s not simply jarring for the film’s tone. To some extent, this is a film that does not know what it wants to be. On a more anecdotal note, it is primarily filmed and takes place in Ireland, however, it does not feel particularly Irish owing to its multi ethnic cast. Maybe Paul Reid has more screen time as the main Irish actor on this one yet he appears to be in the sixth or the seventh most important character. Perhaps they would probably still call it Cult Killer, but it wouldn’t matter if the location was England or America as none of the cultists would be wearing GARDAI insignias on their uniforms.

For fans of gritty revenge dramas who are not too bothered by everything nasty that has been mentioned earlier, Cult Killer may not be a bad pick at all. It manages to kill some time. But why would you want to recommend this film to anybody? Witnessing people like enough to go out of their way to recommend to anybody is, quite simply, incomprehensible. It helps, certainly, but there isn’t much else besides. It’s poorly executed on every level, and in every department, and there is zero chance it leaves any impression. It has low production values, low production values, very unambitious, and in all honesty, it does not deserve to be remembered at all.

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