The Killing Floor (2007)

Really Surprised!

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

There are some elements of The Killing Floor that are quite good. There are far more things that are solidly mediocre. Then there's stuff that gets worse and worse the more you think about it. Co-writer/director Gideon Raff competently assembles it all but fails to spice up the mediocre or camouflage the worst, producing a movie that falls just short of being okay.David Lamont (Marc Blucas) is a literary agent in New York City. He's the sort of guy who lives his life in fast forward, with no time or use for pleasantries unless he's trying to get himself laid. But he's also the sort of guy who'd never think of banging his hot secretary Rebecca (Shiri Appleby) because she's only a secretary.David has just bought himself a three story penthouse and started to flirt with his beautiful neighbor from downstairs Audrey (Reiko Aylesworth), when weird things start happening. Someone shows up claiming to be the son of the man who used to own David's penthouse, insisting that he's the one who now owns it. An envelope of photos shows up that seem to show murdered bodies in David's home. A video tape arrives that shows the police dealing with a triple homicide in the penthouse, but David can't find any other evidence such a crime took place. Then another video tape shows up, shot by someone who got inside David's penthouse and filmed him while he was sleeping.All that quite appropriately freaks David out. The only person he can turn to, however, is an oddly apathetic police detective named Martin Soll (John Bedford Lloyd). David slowly loses all semblance of control and begins violently lashing out against the mysterious forces tormenting him, leading to a deadly resolution and the even more perplexing reason for everything that's been happening to him.The Killing Floor gets off on the wrong foot immediately by establishing David Lamont as dick with no redeeming qualities. But he's not such a colossal dick that you can enjoy seeing terrible stuff happen to him. He's the sort of garden variety dick where you're simply unmoved when you watch him being put through the emotional wringer. That's unfortunate, because Marc Blucas' performance as David is pretty good. He not only perfectly portrays a dick but when the story start to tear David's life apart, Blucas responds with a weave of anger and fear that makes the character seem a lot more realistic and proactive than you usually get in this sort of movie. Aside from staying in the penthouse for too long after the craziness kicks in, Blucas gives David reactions that are much more like what a real person would do in his situation.The other exceptional thing about The Killing Floor is that it manages to keep you guessing as to what's happening to David and why. Every thriller tries to do this. This movie is one of the few that succeeds. Unfortunately, that leads you to another of the very bad things about this film. It keeps you guessing because the scheme at work is so unrealistic in every practical way that no one could anticipate it. There's also at least one occasion, and maybe more, where it doesn't provide the perceptive viewer with the information they'd need to figure things out. In other words, the movie basically cheats at its mystery.The other plot machinations, acting and direction are all relatively effective but never noteworthy, except for a stretch toward the end where David has to confront the awful things he has done in the course of the story. Powered again by Blucas' fine work, these scenes are much smarter and more substantive than anything else in the film.I do have to register one last complaint. There are two sex scenes in this R-rated flick but neither has any genuine nudity. It's all faux nudity where the naughty bits are always kept strategically covered up. I can appreciate that actors and actresses, especially actresses, may not want to disrobe on camera. However, a sex scene in an R-rated movie ought to have actual naked people in it. If you can't pull that off, what's the point in having a PG-13 rated sex scene in an R-rated movie? You might just as well take the high road completely and fade to black.With a more sympathetic main character, a slightly more believable plot and a good dose of legitimate nudity, The Killing Floor might have been trashy fun. Without those, there isn't enough right with this movie to overcome all the wrong. There's certainly lesser films out there you could have the misfortune of seeing, but there's just as many better films that deserve your attention.

The beginning of the film is quite decent with a lot of potential. However the story quickly dissolves into several "suspenseful" misdirections which are mildly entertaining yet predictable.Marc Blucas plays a young, handsome and rich literary agent. The casting of Blucas for this role was a poor decision. Not because he's not a good actor; he's just not a believable yuppie bookworm. I did like that Blucas' character wasn't afraid of the dark and wasn't jumping at every strange sound or seeing things.The end is predictable although the writers didn't think so as the ending is supposed to leave you in shock. All it left me was bored and glad to hit the stop button.

This movie was a disappointment. Characters do not act like normal people and there are too many things that just do not make sense. If you are a fan of horror movies, you are by now used to it and this shouldn't bother you. There are many cheap scares and startling noisy scenes, so if you are watching a movie for that, you will get it. However, if you think this movie will be worth thinking about after you stopped the DVD, sorry, you will be disappointed. Your intelligence is insulted through the whole movie. The main character who is supposed to be a very intelligent person acts throughout a movie like an adolescent who just wrecked his parents' car. He trusts people who any normal individual would distrust and looses all reasoning abilities after about 10 minutes of the movie. The acting was bad even for a low budget movie. Don't waste your time watching this.

This is a thriller about a successful literary agent getting stalked and threatened with psychological means.I must say I did not expect this film to be so good. The character development is excellent. Right from the beginning, the main character David is already a character to be disliked, while the secretary Rebecca is a character to be sympathised. The plot is sophisticated and well thought out. The psychological threat is well presented, and furthermore, it is quite believable. I felt so attached to the characters and what was going on, that I felt insecure about sitting at home! Suspense is maintained throughout the film, and it kept me on edge all the time. From the beginning, there are already clues that gives away the twist at the end, but it does not make the film any worse. In short, I think this is a clever and intense thriller, and I would certainly recommend it!