Pulpmovies Reviews

One of the things I find annoying about a lot of horror films is the way in the audience is expected to accept that a group of characters who clearly don’t get along have decided to spend more than 30 seconds in each others’ company.

Knight Chills gets around this pretty effectively by giving all the characters a common interest - this is a horror film about role-players.

The film starts with the members of a small gaming club arriving at the house of Jack Nixon, local teacher and the club’s games master for one of their regular Saturday night sessions. So we quickly get to meet the characters, starting with John - the nerdy guy whose entire social life is the gaming club and who takes it all a bit too seriously.

Next up we have Hanee and Russell - a pair of twenty something flatmates, both of whom have dropped out of high-school and are drifting through a series of dead-end jobs. Hanee and Russell’s hobbies, apart from role-playing, are drinking and tormenting John.

Nerds have feelings, too, and John’s are directed towards Brooke. Unfortunately for John, these feelings are far from mutual… and Brooke already has a boyfriend in the form yet another member of the group, Zac.

The other two members of the group are gossipy student, Nancy and Jack’s wife, Laura - whose attendance at the group is largely dependent on how quickly her son, Little Jack, will settle down for the night.

Time for a confession… I used to be a role-player and watching the gaming sessions played out in the film did bring back a lot of fond memories. Knight Chills does a very good job of conveying what the hobby is about - a group of people coming together over a few drinks to improvise a story.

So, now we’ve met the characters and had a bit of a discussion as to whether role-playing games are dangerous or just a bit of harmless fun, it’s time for something to happen.

Seeing Zac and Brooke arguing, John decides to seize his moment and attempt to chat Brooke up… badly… very badly. Unsurprisingly freaked out at John’s behaviour, Brooke minces no words in telling him where to go.

So John kills himself.

Things start to unravel for Jack the following day when the police turn up during his first lesson of the week. They have a suspicious death and they have a connection - in he form of a party invite - to Jack and his gaming club. On the basis that any suspect is better than none, Jack is suspended from his job and told to remain in town.

Things unravel a lot more seriously for Hanee and Russell when a medieval knight - the sort of character you might find in, say, a fantasy role-playing game - makes an appearance…

Knight Chills is essentially a revenge driven ghost story - and far from perfect. The acting can get a bit wooden at times - most noticeably Laura’s Stepford Wife style phone conversation with Zac.

Also, the characters - especially Zac - seem far too willing to accept a supernatural explanation for what is going on. It would have been nice to see a bit more disbelief here.

On the other hand, the characters are all reasonably believable and the atmosphere of the film is incredible - kudos here to Joel Newport and Dennis Therrian for a soundtrack that really did enhance the film.

Knight Chills is not an action heavy film, relying instead on characterisation and dialogue (you know… acting) to drive the plot. Collective Developments, the team that made this film, have set out to tell a straightforward ghost story and they have done it well.

And it gets an extra star for reminding me of how I used to spend my Tuesday evenings.

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