Kill Your Lover: I Hope We Can Still Be Friends

Guys, I really want to support indie horror, guys. Guys, seriously, I do, guys, I really do. Guys… Dark Sky Films is really making it hard though, guys. First, I had to drop some truth bombs on Faceless After Dark. Now we come to Kill Your Lover. This isn’t your typical love story. Nope, it’s more like if you threw Blue Valentine and The Fly (minus the real goodness) into a blender, added a dash of punk rock, and hit the puree button with reckless abandon. So, let’s crack open a cold one, light up that metaphorical cigarette, and tear into this flick.

Kill Your Lover is a film that grabs you by the collar, shakes you a bit, and then proceeds to vomit yellow shit all over your brand new goddamn shoes. It’s a story about Dakota (played by Paige Gilmour), a punk rocker chick who’s just about had it with her bland, control-freak boyfriend, Axel (Shane Quigley Murphy). She’s ready to cut the cord, but there’s just one problem: Axel’s not feeling too hot. And by “not feeling too hot,” I mean he’s turning into a slimy, veiny, body-horror mess that looks like something straight out of… well it would be an insult to David to compare this to a Cronenberg nightmare (ALL HAIL THE NEW FLESH), but that’s what it wants to be. Fun, right?

If there’s one thing this film makes crystal clear, it’s that love can be literally toxic. The central metaphor of Axel’s physical transformation mirroring the emotional decay of their relationship is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face. But ya know what? It actually works. We’ve all been there, stuck in a relationship that feels like it’s rotting from the inside out, and Kill Your Lover doesn’t just tell us that—it shows us in all some grotesque glory.

The movie plays with the classic horror trope of the “toxic relationship,” but instead of giving us a weepy breakup drama, it cranks up the horror and lets the mess spill all over the screen. The allegory is as thick as the goo Axel excretes, and while it’s a bit on-the-nose, it’s also effective. Relationships that turn sour don’t just hurt—they can destroy you from the inside out, just like whatever the hell is crawling under Axel’s skin.

Alix Austin and Keir Siewert, the diabolical duo behind this madness, have crafted a film that’s both intimate and unsettling. Their direction keeps us trapped in the claustrophobic apartment, making us feel every uncomfortable moment of Dakota and Axel’s decaying relationship. It’s a testament to their skill that even when the gore is ramping up, the emotional stakes remain front and center.

The writing, while not Shakespearean, generally hits the right notes for this kind of film. The dialogue captures the tension of a relationship in its death throes, with moments that are painfully relatable. It’s not just about the horror of Axel’s transformation, but the horror of realizing you’re stuck in a relationship that’s been dead for a long time, even if the body is still twitching.

Paige Gilmour and Shane Quigley Murphy deserve kudos for their performances. Gilmour as Dakota gives us a character who’s tough on the outside but crumbling on the inside. She’s the kind of punk chick who’s been through the wringer, and now, with Axel turning into a monster, she’s just trying to keep it together. Gilmour’s performance grounds the film, making us care about her even when she’s wading through the muck (literally and metaphorically).

Murphy’s Axel is a whole other beast—again, literally. He starts off as your typical overbearing boyfriend, but as the film progresses, he becomes something much more terrifying. Murphy does a great job of balancing the humanity in Axel with the monstrous elements taking over his body and mind. It’s a performance that’s both pitiful, irritating, and terrifying, a reminder that sometimes the people we love most can become the things we fear.

Oscar Garth, the film’s cinematographer, brings a grungy, claustrophobic vibe to the whole thing. The apartment setting becomes a prison, a battleground, and a petri dish all rolled into one. The use of lighting and color shifts as the relationship deteriorates is pretty effective, with the bright, passionate hues of the past giving way to the sickly greens and browns of the present.

The film’s body horror elements, however, is where I’m completely taken out of the film. I want to see every oozing pore, every spreading vein, captured in all its grotesque glory. You won’t get that here. The black veiny rash shit that is growing on Axel looks like a peel and stick tattoo. God I wish they would have leaned into the gooey, nasty decay instead of what looks way too clean, way too amateurish. One particular scene blew my mind. EMTs come into the apartment to help Axel while he’s in the back with a tree’s worth of black shit growing out of him. Axel gets pretty upset and so he grabs the face of one of the EMTs and… pull’s out their fucking skull!!! Would’ve been a pretty sick fucking kill, except the skull was clean and pristine. I mean, I’m a doc, so maybe I’m being too judgmental, but I would hope you’d know that the skull should be much nastier with attached muscles, soft tissues, not to mention eyes, tongue, etc. Not to keep beating that horse, but the sound design was absurd and incongruous – my ears were hearing it, but my eyes weren’t seeing it.

Kill Your Lover does have its strengths with tight pacing, never dragging even as it unravels the layers of Dakota and Axel’s toxic dynamic. Another strength is how the film handles its themes. Sure, the metaphors are obvious, but that’s part of the fun. This isn’t a film that’s trying to be subtle—it’s loud, brash, and in-your-face, much like Dakota herself. The film doesn’t shy away from the ugliness of its subject matter, and that’s what can make it compelling.

Nonetheless, the film’s budget constraints show, particularly in some of the more CGI-heavy sequences. Axel’s transformation, loses some of its impact when shown in brighter light. You can see the seams here, which really pulled me out of the experience.

The film’s reliance on its central metaphor might also be a turn-off for some. It’s a one-note concept that’s stretched to feature length, and while it mostly works, there are moments where it feels a bit thin, waiting for the next gross-out moment. The dialogue, while mostly sharp, occasionally veers into melodrama, particularly in the flashback scenes.

So, what’s the verdict? There is some real merit here, so I don’t want you think this is a complete stinker, but I simply can’t recommend this in good conscience. You deserve more disgusting, revolting, dripping, nasty body horror than what you get here. It just has too many rough edges for me. The flick just doesn’t reach what it aims to be. Nonetheless, Austin and Siewert clearly have the chops to deliver something truly unsettling, so I’m going to be watching closely for what do next.