A Serial Killer's Guide To Life
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''A Serial Killer's Guide to Life'' is a 2019 British satirical horror
road movie A road movie is a film genre, genre of film in which the main characters leave home on a road trip, typically altering the perspective from their everyday lives. Road movies often depict travel in the hinterlands, with the films exploring the the ...
written, directed, co-produced and co-edited by Staten Cousins Roe in his feature-length directorial debut. It stars Katie Brayben, Poppy Roe,
Ben Lloyd-Hughes Benedict Lloyd-Hughes (born 14 April 1988) is a British actor. Early life Lloyd-Hughes was born in 1988 in London, the son of Lucy Appleby and Timothy Lloyd-Hughes. He attended St Paul's School, London. In 2011 he finished his acting traini ...
, Sarah Ball and others. After premiering at film festivals in 2019, ''A Serial Killer's Guide to Life'' was released by
Arrow Films Arrow Films is a British independent film distributor and restorer specialising in world cinema, arthouse, horror and classic films. As Arrow Video, it sells Ultra HD Blu-rays, Blu-rays and DVDs online; it also operates its own subscript ...
to digital media /
video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...
on 13 January 2020, including the streaming channels
Amazon Prime Amazon Prime (styled as prime) is a paid subscription service of Amazon which is available in many countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services inclu ...
and
Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...
and the cable channel
Showtime Showtime or Show Time may refer to: Film * ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film * ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur Television Networks and channels * Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...
. The film received favorable reviews.


Plot

Lou Farnt is a meek young Englishwoman with poor self-esteem, who is emotionally browbeaten by her harsh and demanding mother, with whom she lives. Wanting something better, Lou follows the teachings of various self-help gurus, but especially that of Chuck Knoah. At a different self-help guru's lecture, Lou sees a middle-aged women who strikes her attention. But when she looks again, the woman is gone. She later meets the woman, who introduces herself as Val Stone, a self-help teacher who believes she would be perfect for Lou. A day later, at Val's invitation, Lou visits her at a caravan park. There, Lou describes a road trip of discovery she is taking the next day, and insinuates that Lou should join her. Despite being flattered by the attention, Lou initially can't bring herself to leave home for an extended time for the first time. But her mother's emotional abusiveness changes her mind. The next day, Lou leaves with Val in a car, for the purpose of visiting various types of self-help gurus for research. A radio briefly mentions that a woman has been found murdered at a caravan park. With Val periodically leaving voicemails to let her mom know she is alright, they make their first stop at a wilderness retreat led by Ben. After engaging in some activities such as tree hugging, pitching camping tests and listening to one of the three other attendees provide evening entertainment by singing a song in Welsh, they all turn in. The next morning, Val hurries Lou to leave. After they do so, we see the dead bodies of Ben and the attendees, their heads bashed in. The next stop is a "sonic vibration" retreat, where Lou and Val are the only two attendees of the husband-and-wife couple who run it at their large house. The following morning, Val stabs the wife to death, with Lou witnessing the aftermath. The husband stumbles onto the scene and tries to escape into the yard, but Val, wielding the knife, catches him. The two struggle, and Val is being overpowered when Lou kills the husband. Lou and Val leave their car behind and take the couple's minivan. As radio news begins reporting about the murders, Lou has Val pull over in order to throw-up in a field. Val goes to her, and Lou angrily wrestles with her and puts Val in a chokehold. Val urges Lou to kill her. But Lou cannot, and the two lay exhausted in the field. Val calls Lou the best student she's ever had. They visit a laugh-therapy workshop and murder the members. Then during a visit to a birth-memory guru, and while Val waits in the hall, Lou begins to hallucinate. She has a memory of herself killing her mother before leaving on this trip, with the image intercutting with that of Val murdering her mother. The two finally arrive at Chuck Knoah's estate. They find him a pathetic wreck, going through a terrible divorce and about to be dropped by his publisher for having no new book ideas. Ironically, once Knoah realizes these are the two serial killers on the news, he says his publisher would just love their memoirs, and is on a phone call arranging a meeting when Val shoots him in the head. Lou stabs Val, who earlier had called the police in an attempt to frame Lou and escape. A gun-wielding Val chases Lou to the edge of a cliff, and there they have a final meeting-of-the-minds as police sirens and a helicopter close in. Val is stabbed by Lou and then Lou stabs herself and the two fall on the grass. But moments later, when police arrive, Val seems to have vanished. The film ends with a repeat of the opening scene of Lou, walking outdoors, wearing earbuds and listening to a recorded Knoah lecture.


Cast

* Katie Brayben as Lou Farnt * Poppy Roe as Val Stern *
Ben Lloyd-Hughes Benedict Lloyd-Hughes (born 14 April 1988) is a British actor. Early life Lloyd-Hughes was born in 1988 in London, the son of Lucy Appleby and Timothy Lloyd-Hughes. He attended St Paul's School, London. In 2011 he finished his acting traini ...
as Chuck Knoah * Sarah Ball as Lou's mother * Sian Clifford as Cynthia * David Newman as Barry Withnott * Tomiwa Edun as Ben * Fiona Glascott as Sharon Deliver-Brant * Sinead Matthews as Izzy * David Manson as Ralph * Owain Rhys Davies as Marcus


Production

In 2013, Poppy Roe and her husband, Staten Cousins Roe, made a darkly comic short film, ''This Way Out'', about a
euthanasia Euthanasia (from : + ) is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering. Different countries have different Legality of euthanasia, euthanasia laws. The British House of Lords Select committee (United Kingdom), se ...
clinic doing what it could to get more clients. Poppy Roe and her drama-school schoolmate Katie Brayben starred. The short attracted positive attention and sales, and the filmmakers in January 2017 did a crowdfunding campaign for a feature film they originally titled ''Self-Help''. The film, eventually titled ''A Serial Killer's Guide to Life'', shot for two weeks across 28 locations in
Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...
and
Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...
, England. Poppy Roe stated, A trailer was released in January 2020.


Release

After premiering at the
London FrightFest Film Festival FrightFest, also known as Arrow Video FrightFest is an annual film festival held in London and Glasgow. The festival holds three major events each year: a festival running five days over the UK late August Bank Holiday weekend, a Halloween eve ...
on 24 August 2019, it later played at such festivals as England's Grimmfest: Manchester's International Festival of Fantastic Film and Fantastic Film Festival Australia. Picked up by
Arrow Films Arrow Films is a British independent film distributor and restorer specialising in world cinema, arthouse, horror and classic films. As Arrow Video, it sells Ultra HD Blu-rays, Blu-rays and DVDs online; it also operates its own subscript ...
for commercial distribution, it was released to digital media /
video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...
in the US, Canada, and the UK on 13 January 2020, including the streaming channels
Amazon Prime Amazon Prime (styled as prime) is a paid subscription service of Amazon which is available in many countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services inclu ...
and
Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...
and the cable channel
Showtime Showtime or Show Time may refer to: Film * ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film * ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur Television Networks and channels * Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...
.


Reception

''A Serial Killer's Guide to Life'' holds approval rating on
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website
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, based on reviews. Lorry Kikta of ''
Film Threat ''Film Threat'' is an American online film review publication, and earlier, a national magazine that focused primarily on independent film, although it also reviewed videos and DVDs of mainstream films, as well as Hollywood movies in theaters. ...
'' wrote " bone-dry dark horror-comedy, ''A Serial Killer’s Guide to Life'', is ''
I Heart Huckabees ''I Heart Huckabees'' (stylized as ''i ♥ huckabees''; also ''I Love Huckabees'') is a 2004 philosophical comedy-drama film directed and produced by David O. Russell, who cowrote the screenplay with Jeff Baena. A self-described "existential ...
'' meets ''
American Psycho ''American Psycho'' is a black comedy horror novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the First-person narrative, first-person by Patrick Bateman, a wealthy, narcissistic, and vain Manhattan investmen ...
'' by way of ''
Thelma and Louise Thelma is a female given name. It was popularized by Victorian writer Marie Corelli who gave the name to the title character of her 1887 novel '' Thelma''. Although the character was supposed to be Norwegian, it is not a traditional Scandinavian n ...
''." James Perkins of ''
Starburst MicroPro International Corporation was an American software company founded in 1978 in San Rafael, California. They are best known as the publisher of WordStar, a popular early word processor for personal computers. History Founding and early su ...
'' wrote "Satire is very difficult to do - especially when trying to find the balance of telling an interesting story and also being respectful to anyone affected by the source material. ''A Serial Killer's Guide to Life'' accomplishes this task tenfold and is one of the funniest and most original British films in a long time." However, while Sep Gohrdani of the UK magazine ''
VultureHound ''VultureHound'' is a British monthly magazine that is focused on popular culture, entertainment and professional wrestling. Founded in 2011 as an entertainment website, it launched its first magazine in 2014. Since its foundation, its current E ...
'' called it "an engaging, sharp, witty and darkly fun
black comedy Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...
," he said it "doesn't quite live up to its full potential" because it "never manages to take the concept to the next level, and thus it remains watchable without being remarkable." Bryan Yentz of '' Rue Morgue'' felt the same way. He liked its "darkly humorous tone" that "nails the self-indulged attitudes and attributes of many a life-coaching element," and he "appreciated the dry tone and believable delivery from each actress, as well as the surrounding cast," but felt that, "The idea is a one-trick pony that doesn't truly evolve the premise beyond what's expected and becomes a rinse/repeat of therapeutic slayings that are visually stifled by repetitive cutaways and (sometimes) after-imagery of a corpse." He complimented "its two fantastic leads, Katie Brayben and Poppy Roe." Commenting on the musical score, Josh Sandy of ''
The Mancunion ''The Mancunion'' is the University of Manchester Students' Union's student newspaper. It is the largest student newspaper in the United Kingdom and is distributed throughout Greater Manchester. The name is a portmanteau of ''Mancunian'', the de ...
'', the
University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...
student newspaper, said it "is packed full of orchestral pieces. Whilst this may be a slightly unorthodox choice, the increasingly discordant and erratic music provides the ideal accompaniment to Lou's rapidly deteriorating mental state."


Nomination

The film's writer-director, Staten Cousins Roe, was nominated for the 2019 FrightFest ''Screen'' Genre Rising Star Award.


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Serial Killer's Guide to Life, A 2019 films 2019 horror films British comedy horror films British road movies British satirical films Films shot in East Sussex Films set in England Crowdfunded films 2010s English-language films 2010s British films English-language horror films