A Filmmaker's Review: "The Clovehitch Killer" (2018)

I’m not going lie about this - the film had a great atmosphere and I’m really glad we’re over the eye-rolling jump-scare era. This film really relies on realism and the way in which a story and narrative build a picture which has a concept that is absolutely terrifying. But as some people have called it a horror film, I would not. I would instead call it an all-American Thriller. And that’s fine, but don’t get confused between the two genres.

The film is about a young man called Tyler Burnside who lives in a small town and close knit community of super-christian Bible belt America. He finds some incriminating material in his father’s truck and shed and starts to begin suspecting his father is a killer from ten years’ ago that was never caught. Him and a girl called Kassi, who has no ‘real’ home, search for answers whilst it looks like Tyler’s friendships and life is pretty much falling apart here.

I love the way in which the character tensions go on to create the main tensions of the story. We get the interactions between the father and son which create some questions and then this will move on to the son practically CSI-style investigating his father. It is a pretty good theme and honestly, I am so glad there is no jump scares because I would’ve given it 0 out of 5 if it did. I can’t stand needless jump scares. After one watch, it’s off.

One thing I do love about some films coming out in the past five years is the new aesthetic. In this film, in “The Devil all the Time” and in other films, we see small town America, almost sepia toned, spaced out beautiful spaces on the Bible Belt with characters that are in oppression and turmoil, going through something inside they cannot talk about that has horrid consequences. It is a brilliant aesthetic and it makes America look so gorgeous with all of its natural beauty.

Now are the things that don’t make the movie that great at all. So the first thing is that it has never really explained why the mother is so strict. I understand she’s a strict christian, but some of the things she does and says doesn’t make sense. I’m not going to say exactly what they are out of spoilers so I’m going to give you the task the solve this mystery.

Sometimes the dialogue can be amazing, but on the other hand it can be horribly cliché. It’s a cross between being awesome and hyper-realistic, especially the conversations between Tyler and Kassi - both actors there were brilliant. But, the conversations that happen inside Tyler’s house can get to the point where you think that super strict christians would not actually say this, would they? I’m British, if I’m wrong then correct me. Sometimes it felt really forced.

Another thing I want to talk about is that there are rooms inside Tyler’s house that Tyler does not know about even though apparently he has lived there all of his life and really, I can’t actually imagine this happening in real life. It seemed like it was trying to cover up a plot hole so bad. But when you get down to it, there are even people like Billy who won’t discuss things out of sin. Sometimes I did feel like this was forced rather than actually part of the storyline. You’re never really given the ‘why’ behind people’s mannerisms and there’s no reason for them. But the most important thing is that there is no consistency. Billy first discusses Kassi and why she’s a terrible human being outside the church but then later on, doesn’t want to discuss it because it’s a ‘sin’. There are many plot holes in some characters.

All in all, the film was pretty good but there were some things that could’ve been polished out of the story’s plot holes and the character’s contradictions. I think it might be trying to show the contradictions of some people part of the Bible Belt, but I feel like that is also a tiny bit offensive to the people who actually live there (and because this is realism, I assume they may live like this or something like this). I would say watch it, see it for yourself because many people do love this film and yes, it’s pretty good to be honest.