If you think living in a recession-ravaged world isn’t brutal enough, just introduce death. Half crime thriller, half outright horror, KILL LIST bends the hitman genre into an intensely dark psychological film that’s already gained a reputation for leaving audiences with the “Kill List stare.”

Eight months after a failed assignment that’s left him empty and struggling like so many to take care of his family, Jay (Neil Maskell) is approached by his partner and best friend, Gal (Michael Smiley), for another job: three names, three deaths. But the job’s simplicity hides more than the usual problems of planning a murder — the pair’s descent into the world of its targets will leave them irrevocably changed. And the same goes for the audience.

Directed and written (with Amy Jump) by Ben Wheatley, whose first feature, DOWN TERRACE, drew terror and dark humour out of a murderous family, KILL LIST is an uncommonly raw journey of death, desperation and, ultimately, judgement.