American Killing (2016) User Reviews

Great premise, not so great movie

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 18 July 2019]

Jeb's cartoon is on the verge of cancellation, so the studio sends him and his writers to a house in the mountains to write the entire next season as fast as possible. However, Jeb's controlling personality and obsessive work ethic ruins things immediately. And when he starts to plant cameras all over and call people on their hidden conversations, things go from bad to murder.

Jeb is soon fired by the studio, yet he keeps watching the house from the home of his mother, who never wanted him in the first place. He then returns, killing the rest of the writers one at a time, making his own snuff film.

Originally known as Wichita, this movie was written, directed, produced, and scored by a group of film-school friends who graduated from USC's School of Cinematic Arts, including directors Justyn Ah Chong and Matthew D. Ward. It stars Trevor Peterson (Grizzly Park), Persia White (The Vampire Diaries) and Caitlin Gerard (Insidious: The Last Key).

Seeing as how this was the filmmaker's first full-length film, it's unfair to demand much of it. There are some intriguing ideas here, but the movie never seems to feel like it develops much before it wildly veers in tone. There are some good ideas here and I'm interested to see what everyone does next.

Witchita Massacre

[drhall-672-138129 · 3/10 · 29 June 2017]

Trevor Peterson (Jeb) clinically cold smile pasted over a boiling maniac personality could very well become the next big sociopathic "Hannibal Lector" ... Melinda Lee (Joan) was a wasted talent ... Demetri Goritsas (Clark) should have had a decent script, Sondra Blake (mom) was really good, the rest of the cast was pleasant but forgetful.

Witchita had a nice beginning mix of mystery and a story build-up, then, you have to ask yourself, did Matt Ward (writer) just take off and go out to celebrate an unfinished movie? The story crescendo leaves you asking for more acting chops, the ending was not fleshed out (at all) and which cast, even the "B" movie characters are clearly capable. M. Ward, you could have had a cult movie on your hands but just needed a case study of say, Silence of the Lambs?

Amy and the Aliens

[mikeledo · 3/10 · 30 June 2017]

PLOT SPOILERS Jeb (Trevor Peterson) is the lead writer of "Amy and the Aliens" an animated series on its last legs. He is tasked to script 30 episodes in 30 days with a cast of writers. They are to write at a mountain retreat. Jeb, a voyeur, has the place wired for sight and sound and discovers he is not the most beloved man on the planet. Half way into the film Jeb is canned (sorry for the spoiler) and goes to his dysfunctional home in Wichita so we could have a title for the film that beats "Manifesto" but not by much. Here we finally find out about Jeb with the feature closer to the end than the beginning. Jeb returns with the head cam you see on the DVD artwork...and since this is a horror film it wasn't hard to figure out what was going to happen.

The problem with the whole film is that you knew how it was going to end up with a pretty good guess as to the "final person." The killings were bunched up at the end. No mystery or suspense and not much of a thriller or horror. Also Jeb's character wasn't that great. At brief moments he had a Normal Bates quality but that died too quickly, warping from voyeur to serial killer. It just didn't do it for me.

I thought the women in the support cast did well, I really liked the little snitch Caitlin Gerard. The guys were stereotyped and given bland lines, with dialogue being an issue with the script.

Guide: F-word. Implied sex. No nudity.

Meh.

[reywal99 · 3/10 · 4 November 2019]

If you want scares or suspense you're looking in the wrong place. Performances are fine. For a rather shot film, it seems longer than it actually is. Might have been better as a 15 minute short film as opposed to a full length feature.

Waste of time, talent, and money

[Kaos657 · 3/10 · 3 December 2022]

The only reason why I am giving this movie a review is to save someone else from having to watch this rather bad movie. The acting is pretty bad.

Christopher Wolfe's character spends most of the movie trying to get laid, and the best part of his role is watching him get strangled by someone other than who he thought it was.

Demetri Goritsas plays a "down on his luck" recovering drunk who gets disrespected at every turn. His character is afraid of his wife, and has zero backbone to the point that I couldn't help but find his character to be laughably pathetic.

Even the main character played by Trevor Peterson is laughable. Instead of doing a better job at his job, he kept disrespecting his coworkers, and being a creep to the point he got fired, then he went home to his "mama" and snapped after smoking something from a pipe that looks like a crack pipe. There is no character build up for Jeb, and the entire character makes a better stalkerish creep than he does a killer. There was no thought behind his motivation to kill, despite him being portrayed being intelligent enough to be a television show producer. His obsession with Raven didn't make any sense. He just "was" obsessed with her character for no given reason. Even after he saw that she was disgusted by the fact he had a lewd picture of her on his computer he remained obsessed for some unknown reason.

In all honesty the character Mama was acted in the most believable manner. She came across as a God fearing, Devil hating, totally paranoid, and delusional old basket case.

The short version is... This story leaves a lot to be desired and was acted in a sub par manner, which is usually the fault of the director more so than the actors themselves. If you are looking for plot development there is none. If you are bothered by slasher movies this one might be worth watching since it is toned down, and the gore is virtually nonexistent, but if you are one of those people that only enjoy pg-13 movies then this may be too much for you.

If you let your kid watch this movie they could be bothered by it, but if they watch horror movies even children shouldn't be that bothered by this D- film. I only gave this movie a 3 because I really enjoyed watching that sex starved guy get killed in the manner he did.

If you are a fan of slasher films I recommend skipping this one. If they cut out the smoking scenes it would probably be rated pg-13.

Must watch hidden gem of thrillers.

[paul-20576 · 9/10 · 22 June 2017]

You have to check out Wichita. The movie follows a failing TV show writer who gathers a group of unsuspecting script-writers into a mountain retreat home to come up with an idea for the next big show. But little do they know what their host Jeb has in store for them. What I most liked about the film is the main character and how well Trevor Peterson does in his role as Jeb. You can tell Jeb is a bit strange from the start, but it blossoms into so much more than being just a bit odd and shy. Wichita is a hidden gem that I cant wait to share with other thrill(er) seekers like myself. Truly an original movie and I cant wait to see more from this cast, writer, and crew!

My Review Of "American Killing a.k.a Wichita"

[ASouthernHorrorFan · 7/10 · 31 July 2019]

The story, though slightly mundane, offers a quality psycho killer character study, with an entertaining dose of voyeurism and slasher horror. And, even with the microbudget look and feel, "American Killing" manages to be a fun watch. The start of the movie seems slightly clunky, the energy is nearly non-existent for the first 40 minutes, with hints of what is to come sprinkled in- just so you know something is off with this guy and things will pick up.

The working element for me was the cool way that Jeb blurs the line between protagonist and antagonist- really making you connect with him on both levels. Plus Trevor Peterson's performance is amazing. All in all most of the cast are good, which makes this low-budget chiller read as quality indie filmmaking. The things that work far exceed the things that don't.

I do wish there would have been a bit more gore to push this closer to those classic psycho flicks like "The Intruder", "Maniac" and "New York Ripper", but the softer approach (relatively speaking, there is plenty of killing in this one) still allows for a slow, creepy thriller worth checking out.