REVIEW ‘ZERO KILLED’ @ SLIPPERY LYZARD

by Slippery Lyzard | Cape Town, South Africa, Nov, 2012

Now this is filmmaking, even if it’s seems a tad amateur, it’s still brilliant. The concept, not the freshest since the fall of the western world but nevertheless, definitely plays into the human psyche of wanting to kill someone after they have fucked with you. I couldn’t think of a more original thing to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon other than finding a victim, torturing the bejesus out of them, and then systematically putting them out of their misery in any way conceivable. This may truly be art…

Quiet on set! Oh hello, I was just about ready to get into my directors chair. Now I know what you are thinking you’re a writer, what’s with all this film making mumbo jumbo? Well I’ll tell you; I was about to start production on a little script I wrote entitled “Death to all Lyzards”. You like? I thought you would. It’s a straight to the point feature with a plot so brilliant it will have you chewing your fingers right down to the bone. Want to hear it? Well it begins on a fine day quite like today and ends up with me the Lyzard King brutally murdering all Lyzard impersonators in the most creative way possible. You’re thinking it’s ok maybe a little cheesy but hey let me ask you this then; don’t you ever have any murder fantasies?

Ok well this is a very bad synopsis of the film but the core idea is there. The film ‘Zero Killed’ a ‘horrormentary’ if you will was conceived and violently spawned by Director Michal Kosakowski. In it he asked a solid group of “stable” people with varying agenda’s and backgrounds to direct a short film with the explicit instructions for it to be a murder fantasy. But there was a catch, a clincher if you will; the director of the said murder fantasy had to star in the film as either the victim or the perpetrator. Sounds like fun right? I thought so, what a brilliant idea. Most people experience murder fantasies pretty much every other day even those who consider themselves to be ‘normal’. And I bet most of you would kill whether you were happy, sad or angry giving the right motivation/ push and/ or were put in the right situation. This is of course with varying degrees of creativity but it’s not unbelievable.

Admirably, director Michael Kosakowski, decided in 2006, a decade after the films were made, to meet up with these very creative individuals and see just how they turned out. Amazingly they turned out ok with some of them going onto to become rocket scientists while others went on to clearing your trash. No real change was noted that would have made them perpetuate what had happened on screen. It’s probably because of a little something called rational thought a trait few lack but many ignore. Nothing in their own lives had seriously gone wrong to the extent that they would act out their fantasies. Our body’s physical and mental makeup if pushed far enough can be used as a weapon though; we are our own worst enemy. But still they lived through the last ten years unscathed. But everyone has a breaking point as stated here. “We live in a dangerous world”.

Zero Killed is an excellent film and comes highly recommended by the Lyzard. If you are not convinced go see it for yourself and ask yourself these questions. What would you do if someone tortured and murdered someone you love? If the government wanted to legalize torture would it be justifiable and so the list goes on and on. These and more are a few of the questions Michael Kosakowski asks the directors who come back with some startling answers. Let’s just say some people would do just about anything giving the right amount of push.

Read the review on theslpress.com