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presents Killer Me This impressive debut feature is an evocative, unsettling, and very tense psychological study, reminiscent of Lodge Kerrigan's CLEAN, SHAVEN in tone and style. But KILLER ME also contains productive echoes of genre filmmaking—Zachary Hansen is a writer-director with a knack for telling compelling stories. — 28th Telluride Film Festival Program Killer Filmmaking
The Killer Me storyline, according to Hansen, "blurs the line between art-house films and psychological thrillers. It has too many ambiguities to be wholly a thriller." Hansen hadn't finished the film when he graduated from California Institute of Arts, and, having lost his access to the school's studios, was forced to do the film piece-meal. The time, Hansen said, it allowed him to step away from the project and return to it with fresh eyes. One highlight of the film is its innovative soundtrack, recorded using a child's toy camera, the Fisher Price PXL2000. Though many independent filmmakers have used the PXL2000, Hansen believes he is the first to record sound with it. When playing the PXL2000 tapes back in an audio tape player, you hear a low distorted humming sound, which Hansen learned to manipulate. He experimented with bells, lights, his electric shaver, and the creak of his apartment floor---all to affect the musicality of the playback's hum. "My girlfriend though I was nuts," Hansen admitted. — Andrew Molloy, The Film Watch
presents Killer Me Thirty-year-old criminology student Joseph Sturgeon (George Foster) employs an almost pathological shyness to cover up his own jagged and disturbing shards of memory about violent acts he may or may not have committed. Coaxed out of his shell by the childlike yet aggressive co-ed Anna (Christina Kew), Joseph still can’t quite shake the repulsion he feels for himself and his past, and sinks deeper into his violent psychosis. Shot by the cinematographer of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, KILLER ME represents a modest triumph of atmospheric dysfunction for writer-director-editor-composer Zachary Hansen, who blends stylistic elements of early Roman Polanski with the sinister sonic swoosh of the landmark horror indie THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (Arlan Boll’s imaginative sound design incorporates Hansen’s fascination with sounds recorded on a 15-year-old battery-operated Fisher Price PXL 2000 camera). If O. Henry had tackled an imaginatively arty slasher movie, the results would have looked very much like KILLER ME. — Eddie Cockrell, 9th Annual Hamptons International Film Festival Program
presents Killer Me Joseph Sturgeon (Foster), a 30-year-old criminology student, is terrified of his own potential for evil. He awakes each night, drenched in sweat and sometimes, blood. Joseph carries a terrible secret, one that consumes his every thought. He fears he has killed. Through isolation and self-mutilation, he keeps his compulsions in check. Anna (Kew) finds Joseph mysterious and driven. She approaches him hoping to make a connection. After an awkward courtship, Joseph and Anna begin to open up to one another. Both have suffered tragedy and find solace in their shared understanding. Joseph begins to fall in love. Feeling human emotion for the first time, his regimented world is shaken and he is unable to keep his dark visions from returning. He fears for Anna and pushes her away. Anna, sensing something is terribly wrong, attempts to contact Joseph. In desperation, she breaks into his apartment. She finds him but does not see the straight razor concealed by his side. — 4th Annual Method Fest Program presents Killer Me
presents Killer Me
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Much
of the second-unit photography used in Zachary Hansen's Killer Me was
done with the same CP-16 film camera utilized for the Blair Witch
Project---Neal Fredericks, who shot Killer Me, also taught the Blair
Witch actors how to hold, shoot, and light their way through that
film. "We put a posting on an Internet site that we needed a
cinematographer, and Neal responded," Hansen said, adding that some
of the work Fredericks did on Killer Me predates his Blair Witch
photography. "He worked really fast, which I needed at the
time," Hansen said.
