mjsreg If you are looking for an easy watch this movie is probably not for you.But if you enjoy an engrossing story line - the kind that sucks you in and demands you pay attention then this is a must.The acting is brilliant and by the end of the film you may find yourself attached to the characters more than you realised as the story comes to it's conclusion.The visual style is not to everyone's taste, but once you become engrossed as the plot as it unfolds the visuals seem a natural and very appropriate part of the experience.

Liam Blackburn I kept changing my rating for this because while it is a movie that keeps your attention...the plot has no twists at all. Everything happens the way you would expect it to. The fact of their secret relationship is pretty much known because what other reason would he have to protect him. So no real jaw dropper there. Then, the girl is understood to be the murderer about quarter-way through the movie. Even though it is totally telegraphed, the acting was incredibly good. This is what held the movie together. I can't say much for the plot, it's basically completely obvious. So I give this 7 stars for keeping my attention.

KinkyMinx21 I had high hopes for this film just looking at the cast which includes Stellan Skarsgard, Melissa George, Tom Hardy & Selma Blair among others. Add to this to the fact that I love movies in this genre & how could this possibly fail? Well, I'm afraid it did. The premise was interesting enough, the police try to find someone who is killing people, carving weird formula's into their skin & then dumping the bodies. There were a few twists along the way as our protagonist (Skarsgard) & his partner (George) attempted to discover the identity of the perpetrator, however, the progression of the story went at such a sluggish pace that the revelation seemed to come too late for me to care, it didn't feel suspenseful, it just felt slow. I also felt that the whole thing might have been more plausible if Jean had had an accomplice. As it stood, it was completely unbelievable that this tiny woman would have had the skills or strength to overcome several well-built men, (who were likely armed) drug them & transport them from one location to another. Not only this but she has to carry or drag them to her killing room, get them in the chairs & strap them down, just would not happen without drawing some attention to yourself. Yes, towards the end, we see her dupe a passerby into helping her but even if she did this every time, she still has to get them out of the van. It just seemed ridiculous that a viewer would buy this! The next discoveries regarding the cover up & evidence destruction were not a huge surprise, maybe I've seen too many films in this vein to be easily shocked but it became pretty obvious to me where it was going. The final big reveal, Skarsgard's relationship with his informant, again wasn't earth shattering. He obviously wasn't his son so you start asking yourself, why is he so attached to this guy? and from there, it's not so hard to work it out. On a positive note, George is believable as the young detective & Hardy takes up the role of tough gangster with conviction. Selma Blair is criminally underused however. Not awful but I'm glad I didn't pay to see it.

Jonny_Numb When taking a chance on a sight-unseen, used DVD, my expectations are usually fairly reflective of the few bucks I shell out for it. "The Killing Gene," while boasting a fine cast, struck me as nothing more than another blurb-happy, sledgehammer obvious entry in the Dimension 'Extreme' line of hit-or-miss horrors. After having watched it, all I can say is...holy hell. Obviously targeting the audiences that made "Saw" and "Hostel" the New Torture Vanguard (one of the box blurbs directly references the former, not without accuracy), "The Killing Gene"--despite some transparently derivative elements pulled from the genre--comes very close to trouncing its competition. Remember that moment near the end of "Saw" when Cary Elwes does the unthinkable with the titular tool? Well, imagine that degree of gritty intensity stretched out over the course of 102 nerve-shredding minutes, and you have a good idea of what to expect here. Stellan Skarsgard (bearing an uncanny resemblance to Donald Pleasence) plays a homicide detective investigating a string of torture-murders with novice cop Melissa George; suspicions are running that the killer is targeting a group of vile gang members out of revenge for an equally hideous crime (which I won't reveal here; it's a truly horrifying scene). Clive Bradley's script doesn't use the torture angle as a mere marketable throwaway, nor does it treat the characters as meat for the machine; there is a surprising amount of development here, to the point where our sympathies and doubts become one and the same. From a visual standpoint, director Tom Shankland ("The Children") uses jerky digital video and claustrophobic close-ups to convey a sense of urgency within a decaying urban nightmare from which all hope has been drained (this could very well be the most squalid metropolis since David Fincher's "Se7en"). As an unapologetic, unashamed horror fan, I often find myself sitting through garbage that isn't worth the DVD it's pressed on, which makes something like "The Killing Gene" all the more refreshing. Yes, there are some parts you'll feel as though you've seen before; but damned if the overall experience doesn't leave you shaken and adequately disturbed afterward. (It also bears noting that this R-rated film contains some of the most unglamorous, boundary-pushing violence in recent memory.)