Killers (1997) User Reviews

Killers: Not THAT bad

[Platypuschow · 3/10 · 14 October 2018]

Killers aka Killer Instinct presently stands with the rating of 1.9. 1.9! Do you know how few movies have a rating that low? It's insane, it's universally hated!

This was actually a movie I've wanted to watch since it's release so over 20yrs later I perhaps had higher expectations than I should have. Rest assured they weren't met, as the rating suggests it is bad but certainly not THAT bad.

Interesting fact, Killers was the very first movie by a certain infamous movie studio. I'm referring of course to The Asylum, the company made famous by consistently bad "Mockbuster" movies.

Killers is original to it's credit but demonstrates that it doesn't matter what the Asylum does, it's going to be pretty terrible.

Killers tells the story of a group of street kids along with the rich blonde girlfriend of one who meet in an abandoned warehouse to participate in a drug deal. Suddenly a limo turns up with 5 suit wearing gangsters who proceed to lock the place down and kill everyone they see.

The concept is fine until you realise the film suffers from that zero protagonist issue. I'm supposed to be cheering for drug dealers now? Screw that. Sadly that is a common issue with movies, especially lately. If I can't care about a protagonist then what's the point?

It's not a 1.9, it's simply not that bad but make no mistake it's what you'd expect from an Asylum film.

The Good:

The concept is okay

Paul Logan is on form

The Bad:

No protagonist

Awful sound balancing

Looks really quite naff

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Bullets don't go in?!

Paul Logan is one seriously scary dude

Can't believe the debate (spoilers contained within)

[GradeZ · 1/10 · 28 April 2006]

Much of the commentary on this board revolves around debating the validity of some comparison to R DOGS made on the DVD cover. Forget about all of that... This film-- er-- home movie is utterly horrendous. How can anyone with a shred of credibility claim this as being 10/10??? There is no plot, none. I couldn't believe that I spent money to rent this (more on that later) and that I had fooled myself into believing that this (based on box cover art and some sort of film fest award blurb) had potential. The only thing I do really remember was that, unbelievably, one of the annoying main characters was supposedly offed with a bullet to the head... and he ends up surviving the wound and making it to the final credits alive. Wow. And looky dere, Killers has a sequel. Double wow.

True story -- I actually was in so much denial that I had wasted my money and life force on this rental that I kept the videotape for what must've been six months. I kept telling myself that it never actually happened. The video on top of the TV was an illusion - a mental symbol of my self-loathing. After someone pointed out that is was indeed real and that I needed to get a grip, I decided that I couldn't just leave it there. I thought, "How many others have I denied the suffering of sitting through the viewing of this masterpiece by hoarding Killers all to myself?" I had to do the right thing and return it back to the hell from which it came.

So, as I imagine most of the populous of IMDb would do in a similar situation, I mustered up some major courage and drove to the video store... at 2AM. After making sure that no one was around, I got out of my car (still running of course), slipped the movie into the drop box slot, and booked the hell out of there never to return.

I guess I expected that some goons from Hollywood Video corporate would come looking for me (the bill must've racked up to something like $1,238.67 by that time) so I moved away from the area. However, coincidently, much like the Killers storyline, nothing ever happened.

A disaster on every level

[TheLittleSongbird · 1/10 · 2 February 2013]

The first movies from The Asylum and an example of a company that debuts with a terrible movie and carry on making countless others that are even worse. Killers I really do have to agree was a disaster on all levels. Well...maybe not quite all, Kim Little was not too bad, actually she gives a very impassioned performance, though she was much better in the sequel(which while not great was a significant improvement over this). And you can't help shake off that feeling that she was too good-seeming for someone so low. But her performance isn't enough, and that is mainly because the rest of the acting is so bad, more a case though of people trying too hard rather than non-tryers, especially from Paul Logan who makes his clichéd role even more so with a permanent scowl on his face, I wasn't sure whether it was because he was trying too hard to be villainous or whether it was because he didn't want to be there in the first place. A lot of things don't help the actors though, their characters are stereotypical, blandly developed and even annoying(Erica Ortega's character does come out as over-the-top), and the dialogue is vomit-inducingly inane. The story did have an underwritten and over-simplistic scenario to begin with, but does nothing to do something with it. It was too dull, predictable and completely lacking in suspense, and further spoilt by direction lacking in tautness and some of the most irritating camera work(enough with the rapid camera shots already) and lighting schemes of any movie I've encountered. All in all, apart from Kim Little Killers is a disaster. 1/10 Bethany Cox

The second worst film I've ever seen

[Quigon-3 · 9 August 1999]

An embarrassing piece of cinematic incompetence. I've heard more compelling dialogue in laundry detergent commercials and seen better acting in Mentos ads. At no time during this reel of tripe was there even the most vague hint of suspense, character development or unpredictable sequence of events. This was a completely sophomoric attempt at film making and the result was a film with absolutely no redeeming qualities.

Ishtar beware! ! ! !

Not the worst movie I've ever seen...

[michaelzap · 1/10 · 3 June 2002]

...but you can see it from here.

I definitely don't understand why anyone would recommend this movie. Not a bit of plot, not suspenseful, not well-made. No point to having made it, really.

Completely forgettable in ever way.

OMG: This is at the origins of Asylum, one of the most detrimental mini Studios ever!

[Icons76 · 1/10 · 28 December 2012]

This film is so bad, so deprived of any structure,or redeeming quality of sort, so uncannily aware or unaware, mostly, uninterested, i believe, of showing any visible filmmaking training, or just, even some simple education,for that matter,so demented, and, so badly shot, so poorly acted by people, whose non acting abilities,or whose faces are so lacking in any department of even frugal,passable modeling material, it would be almost impossible to find any worse, just even through a very accurately long lasting casting search, that all together, the whole thing comes out truly so depressing, and, demeaning, you may wanna give up on movies for a while, or, if you were just a little familiar with the Industry, you could only guess, such atrocity could have been made only by "that David Michael Latt", who has become these days (and, believe it or not, everything is still obviously possible,in this Country!) one of the "moguls" of a terrible,and, utterly detrimental, annoying, poisonous, little studio, that's making, supposedly, a picture every month, and, it is called "Asylum"! Oh well! lol But, what's even worse news than all the above mentioned, it is that the Asylum got itself a DEAL with the Sy/Fy Channel! And,that most of their films are even distributed largely everywhere, all over the World,in DVD! Now,after watching "something" so unbearably bad, such as "Killers", you may even be able to understand, why, lately, those Sy/Fy movies have been all so intolerably bad, some real stinkers, that are irritating a half of this Country, but, that are yet still getting made, and, not only for cheap, but, also, normally shot in a few rushed days, by crews resembling more a little group of juvenile students in shorts, coming from some suburban Film School, than even the most crude, smallest,independent pedestrian crew, of any other B grade Genre movie, where, at least, some semi qualified and passionate individuals would be at least trying to get ahead in the business,instead of messing up almost with some sadistic pleasure! And,shall we bother to mention,as well,that, here at "the Asylum",they normally use some "incredible" sets, such as hidden few woods,just out of the sight of the LAPD's police jurisdiction,so that the producers can even pocket the budget originally planned for shooting permits, and,then, for interiors,they move in, as a treat, in some of those untidy kitchens,in the apartment of one of those vapid PA's,they hire for way below scale, while,all the rest of the assembled,often, senseless footage, is edited in, with lots of other B rolls, or stuff shot (very, very badly)on a blue/green screen, and, helped with guts to look OK(since, at least, they've got to eventually put together some vaguely promising trailer) by some OK(when you're lucky..that is!)CGI work, normally virtually enhanced by a cheesy, bloated to levels of unconventional,and, previously unheard stupidity, music score, unintentionally laughable, wildly inappropriate,and, most of the times, recycled(obviously) from some "Gaudi" piece from a Studio film's library's left over,either robbed,or bargained down for a few bucks, and, a couple of "promised" favors. Now, if this is a winning recipe, they might have - and,this is a must say, too!- achieved,for the very first time in History,ever, the financially remunerative creation of the first D grade movie Studio,able to get away with murder(truly, of what "murder",you may now ask? But, "the murder" of the real movies,of course! That's what I'm talking about, and, yes, even of the D grade ones!),since, without any style or ambition, class or preparation, nor passion for,at least, some of the most mercenary cult elements, ever abused, but, just actually by using a series of basic standard, fraudulent short cuts in very bad filmmaking (if of that we can even still talk!) that, even people like Lloyd Kaufman of Troma's, would find way too plain, and,just a tad too cliché,to be at the end, even merely interesting, to bother in the making of a Z grade picture, out of each one of them! Yet,people keep on buying this crap,and,getting robbed,because of robbery, we are talking about,while,at the end of 'such presentations",they'd be discussing the end of what once was called the Golden Era of Hollywood, when, even D grade pictures had, at least, some dignity, and, if Corman was just a genius, at times, experimenting on a few LSD's bad trips,but, then producing little masterpieces,even someone clearly demented and disturbed,such as Ed Wood, had, at the very end of the day, a true mythical aura,next to all this! Just let me tell you, even a poor commercial for some of the cheesiest club in Reno,Nevada, could be easily Academy Award's material, by comparison to this Bologna, and, even with some right, and, appropriate argumentation's! That being said...

I've seen much worse

[nzpedals · 5/10 · 23 March 2015]

So, 428 IMDb people rate it 1.9, so... I just have to see it and make my own judgement. I've given it a 5! Which is much higher than some very well known films I've seen.

For starters, Killers has a plausible story that I can follow without scratching my head too much, so that's a plus. There's this bunch of low-level misfits who go to an abandoned warehouse to buy drugs from a guy who has stolen them from another bunch of mid-level misfits.

Unfortunately, the latter know what's going on and come along to reclaim their property. The warehouse has lots of floors and lots of rooms. The two parties meet, there is lots of shooting, most of which misses - as usual.

The actors are quite good, Kim Little is in the first group, said to have just come along to get high, and on the other side is Scott Carson, a handsome, spoilt brat pretending to be a real hood.

There are no serious flaws in my view, but it is all a bit predictable and all that shooting does get tedious

This movie almost killed my joy of watching movies...

[KnatLouie · 1/10 · 25 October 2016]

A friend of mine gave this piece of shet, which he got for free at the recycle center, and after reading the description of the cover "In the tradition of Reservoir Dogs" (whatever the hell that was supposed to mean) we decided to watch it... man, was that a big mistake!

The plot is basically as follow: Some long-haired biker-types and their bimbo girlfriends go to an abandoned warehouse to meet with their pal, fittingly called "Speed" (which also seems like his drug of choice), and they split some drugs and money there - they're all criminals, no doubt. But suddenly a bunch of suit-clad gangsters appear, also wanting the drugs and the money, so the gang decides to flee... or rather, they stay in the building and hide, until the gangsters are closing in on them...and THEN (try to) flee! And they also decide to split up a couple of times (which makes it easier for the bad guys to catch/kill them one at the time). Aaand... that's basically the plot right there.

I've seen some pretty damn worthless movies, but most of them have either been free online stuff and/or amateur school-productions. But this movie is truly scraping the bottom of the barrel. Stupid plot, terrible acting, horrible lighting (if any at all), inept direction and super-dull filming. Throw some shet-poor editing and generic background muzak on top of that, and you've got this film.

It reminded me of other terrible films, like Albert Pyun's "Urban Menace" or Karim Hussain's "Ascension", but it's actually much, much worse, because those movies had some redeeming features, like unintentional comedy (the former) or artistic vision (the latter). This movie has NO REDEEMING FEATURES WHATSOEVER. Unless you like watching a bunch of scruffy-looking dudes running around filthy buildings for 90 minutes, of course.

The one thing that puzzles me the most about this movie, is that they actually went and made a SEQUEL to it! WTF, that's gotta be the least called-for sequel of all-time! It's going straight back to the recycle center, I can tell you that much... or maybe even the city dump would be a better ending for it, as I don't want to put anyone else through the torture of sitting through this truly passion-less turkey.

1/10.

Ugh.

[Benzzo · 1/10 · 19 October 1998]

Let's just say that it might be the worst movie I've ever seen. On the front of the box of the movie it says something about it resembling Reservoir Dogs. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. This is just a warning message to anyone who might read this. It's not even worth renting when you want something to laugh at.

No excuses possible.

[mbyrne-2 · 1/10 · 21 January 2001]

This film is an embarrassment. Nothing works on any level. The direction, screenplay, acting , and editing work together to repel your eyes from the screen. Everything is inappropriate and incoherent. At first you can sit there with and groan, wince, and laugh at it, but very shortly the whole effort of watching just becomes too ponderous.

This movie sucked, but it inspires me...

[bohr11 · 1/10 · 14 July 1999]

This has got to be one of absolute worst movies I've ever seen in my life. The writing and acting are just pathetic. It ranks right up there with Uncle Sam on the all time worst movies ever made. However, when I see crap like this able to make it to video, it really inspires me to pursue my wild dreams of making films because I know I could do a better job than what the makers of Killers did.

It kept me on the edge of my seat

[louisa-3 · 9/10 · 14 December 1998]

I don't really like action/horror films, but when a friend wanted to rent it, I agreed. Even though I didn't really recognize anyone in the film, it kept me engrossed. You don't get a minute to breathe, and I did hide my face a few times, but both the friend and I agreed it was well worth watching. Great to see a film that is not totally predictable, overly slick and glossy.

Not so bad it's good

[kosmasp · 2/10 · 16 June 2017]

But having watched this as a double bill with "Killer Ants", I have to say this was the better movie. Just for the fact alone they used color filters for their lighting. It's not perfect or anything that people would show in their film school or anywhere they teach. Still there has been an effort on that technical side of it. But being a late 90s movie it is also a TV outing that looks dated in more than one way on your 16:9 TV (because it's shot in 4:3 you see).

So the technical side kind of undermines itself, though I guess you can't fault it too much for that. The acting and sound design though is horrible to say the least. And not in a good way. What's really surprising though: this for some reason go treated to a sequel. No I haven't watched that

Garbage.

[alimabean · 24 December 2000]

After seeing this film, I am convinced that the people who added positive feedback about this movie are either:

a) grateful to come out of their cave and see daylight, much less ever see an actual good movie...

b) a storeowner who bought several copies of this video and are trying to rid themselves of them or...

c) actual members of the production crew on this movie.

The movie was so bad, I had to check the box to make sure this wasn't still in production. The only redeeming quality was the 3 second intro. The dialogue was horrible. Maybe it just seemed bad coming from the either whiny or monotone voices coming from the actors. This is to cinema what SAVED BY THE BELL is to intelligent comedy. Garbage.

Warehouse wasters

[Chase_Witherspoon · 1/10 · 31 January 2024]

Gritty but kind of pointless bloodfest concerning a bunch of thugs who apparently rip off some drug dealers, and are then dealt the consequences one by one in an abandoned warehouse building.

The acting is pretty bad and the lighting is awful, much of the time it's difficult to discern what's happening. But all of that could be forgiven if it wasn't so deliberately overblown - the intensity and editing tricks belong to a bigger movie. What was needed was an actual plot, enabled by a tighter script in which some interesting characters could emerge, to offset the budget limitations. Drama and suspense doesn't require a Hollywood budget, and there were opportunities for the cast to interact and create something interesting and suspenseful, but the time and effort was traded instead for tricky editing and senseless, bloody beatings.

Soap actor Paul Logan stars as a pony-tailed assassin who enjoys killing a little too much and gradually loses all his clothes, whilst the B-movie Elisabeth Shue clone (Kim Little) plays a supposedly spoiled rich girl hanging with the tribe for kicks, getting more than she bargained when the adults show up to teach the kids a lesson.

I really appreciate low-budget filmmaking, but this is effortless tripe, and were it not for a few well-framed and photographed shots, it would almost be camcorder home video standard. Astonishingly, it spawned a sequel which is just too tragic to contemplate.

Wow!

[dxm · 10/10 · 14 December 1998]

I didn't know what to expect. I didn't rent the video (though I saw it all over the place). I rented the DVD. Wow. The commentaries were funny and insightful. It really gave me a better appreciation for this independent movie.

All of the actors were top, especially Heather. She was definitely my favorite. But I don't know if I'd recommend this film to everyone. My mom would hate it, so would my brother. But I like dark, edgy films and this one seems to be a cut above the rest. It's not Tarantino, like the box says, it's different. There's no quick dialogue or bloody scenes. But I still couldn't stop watching. What's lame? Hmmmm...maybe the closing narration? A little too pretentious. Otherwise, hat's off. Good film. Great job. Now onto the next one...

Boinky Smurf

[maxray · 10/10 · 28 December 1998]

I just had to comment and debunk my fellow Michigan neighbor who blasted this thriller. KILLERS was a lot of fun, well directed, produced, acted, etc. Look--I didn't pay attention to the Tarantino quote on the box -- I just wanted to see a cool story. Obviously he was looking for the 'artistic' moment, the 'subtext' the 'deeper meaning' or something. But KILLERS is not an art house flick. It's a film to turn the lights off, the volume up and grab some popcorn. I've never heard of anyone in the cast or even the director...but I can't wait to see their next film!

P.S.: I'm glad to read the other comments on this page were equally happy with the film.

bad, abhorrent, abominable, atrocious............

[cookie919 · 7 June 2000]

.......awful, base, beastly, blameworthy, corrupt... I could go on to use every single obscure adjective in the dictionary to describe how bad this movie really is, but i can`t be bothered! I usually only comment on movies i like, but i couldn`t resist having a pop at this pathetic effort. Where can i start, the direction was awful, the acting was ........ahh what is the point.

DO NOT RENT THIS MOVIE, YOU WILL FEEL BAD IF YOU WASTE 2 HOURS OF YOUR LIFE ON IT.

At least now i know not to rent a movie just because it has a cool reference and intriguing back cover ! -3 out of 10.

GREAT!!!!!

[un-3 · 10/10 · 5 May 1999]

This movie is very cool! It is loaded with action and it grabs you and holds on until the very end. The bad guys are especially cool. They are unique, not stereotypical at all, and their performances are worth the price of the rental alone. The directing is excellent and the production values are as good as any major studio release. I loved this movie!!!

sucks

[rdtx2001 · 21 May 2003]

this movie is the epitome of bang to hype ratio being so uneven as to be totally uncomparable to anything committed to film...the ridiculous fake praise on the packaging made this a 'must-see' indie film gem...upon viewing, it is now a 'must miss' piece of indie crap that renders the opinions of anyone praising this festering pile of shit null and void...shot on a budget of five dollars that would've been better spent on a 12 pack of Milwaukee's Best...at least I would've known the headache was coming...

Awesome

[killers · 10/10 · 27 October 1998]

Just rented the flick, and was at the edge of my seat the whole time. Turn the lights off, and the sound up, and you can really get into it. A friend saw it at a few festivals and told me to rent it. I did. I loved it. GO RENT IT!!!

Great Film

[killers · 10/10 · 28 October 1998]

I disagree with Benn Dixon's comments. I thought the acting was great and the suspense was terrific. If you want to see a Tarantino movie, then go and rent one. This is not Reservior Dogs. Sorry. It's better.

surprise!

[vick-12 · 10/10 · 24 April 2001]

When I worked at a video store, I typically had a standing rule that any video box which needs to rely on mylar or 3-D images on the front of the box is probably something to stay away from; the filmmakers or distributor must not think highly enough of their film to let regular artwork speak for itself, and must rely on, literally, "flashy", eye-catching gimmicks to attract attention. KILLERS, with its shameless use of a mirror-y cover box, seems to be the one exception to my rule.

Although obviously low-budget, this is a tight little thriller that pretty much hits the mark -- a satisfying (if not original) piece that I'd gladly recommend to anyone who enjoys suspense.

Great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[icon-8 · 10/10 · 28 October 1998]

Best Acting. Best Directing. Best Everything. Go See this movie!!!!!!!!!!