Two deranged serial killers – one from Tokyo, the other from Jakarta – post their violent crimes online in a psychotic battle for notoriety in this slick, violent, but darkly humorous, psycho thriller from Indonesia’s Mo Brothers.
A brilliant rumination on our violent ways… toying with audience expectations throughout.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2014
Killers 2014
Timothy Tjahjanto (VHS2, ABCs of Death) and Kimo Stamboel (Macabre) collaborate once again as The Mo Brothers in this slick package of blood-soaked moral dubiousness, exemplified by its tagline ‘Inside us lives a killer’. A tale of two psychopaths pitted against one another, each taking turns to post their exploits online and upping the ante as they egg each other on to ever-lowering depths of depravity. Mr Nomura is a suave serial killer who preys on women in Tokyo, while in Jakarta his proxy partner in crime, cynical journalist Bayu, brutally kills two sadistic robbers and begins to embrace his inner-vigilante. Eventually their paths must cross, but not before extended bouts of who’s-the-biggest-sicko-of-them-all, in this clever, savagely entertaining epic.
“Of course there’s plenty of (realistic) gore and torture here but what really fascinates is the cat-and-mouse game of sorts that develops between the two men, as their unusual online relationship, conducted in English, makes it possible for these two killers to externalize something of their attitudes toward their darkest secrets.” — Boyd van Hoeij, Hollywood Reporter