At first glance you would think that Some Guy Who Kills People is set to join the ranks of films with titles that say it all, but it is really a low-budget dark comedy. The film is about a former mental patient named Ken Boyd (Kevin Corrigan) works at the local ice-cream parlour and generally keeps himself to himself but he suffers from flashbacks of when he was brutally tortured by the high school basketball team. He is also continually ridiculed by his condescending mother (Karen Black), that is until his estranged 11-year-old daughter Amy (Ariel Gade) shows up from out of nowhere. Around the same time he meets Stephanie (Lucy Davis) and everything seems to be coming together for Ken, but suddenly the dead bodies of the bullies that ruined Ken’s teenage years start turning up.

For some reason Some Guy Who Kills People is being marketed as a horror-comedy and this really isn’t the case. It could be down to having John Landis (An American Werewolf in London/The Blues Brothers) credited as Executive Producer, and although some of the humour does have that sarcastic Landis touch the horror element really only comes from the fact that there is a serial killer on the loose, and could be limiting to the film’s overall appeal. In truth, SGWKP has more in common with some of those darkly amusing oddball films from the late 80s/early 90s like Parents, Meet the Applegates or even Edward Scissorhands, where there is a general feeling of unease amongst the blackened chuckles.

The performances are all good but most of the laughs come from Barry Bostwick as Sheriff Fuller, who has some of the best lines and scenes in the film, like when he discovers that the eyes of a severed head follow you around the room. Credit must also go to Ariel Gade as Amy, the idealistic child who is uaware of Ken’s past and just wants to get to know her dad.

Focusing more on the relationships between the main characters rather than the grisly murders themselves, which just seem to be incidental, SGWKP is a solidly entertaining film that never quite goes where you expect it to go despite the somewhat awkward title. And the unfortunate thing is that the film may not reach an audience that would probably lap it up it more than your average genre fan, which is a shame, but nevertheless it’s a well-made, strongly-acted and wittily-scripted film that is destined to become a cult hit, if not a commercial one.