Kill for Me | Film review - Strangers on a Train with a female twist

Hitchcock’s classic suspense thriller Strangers on a Train has inspired a host of lesser movies and Canadian thriller Kill for Me clearly owes it a debt too. Katie Cassidy’s Amanda is the story’s innocent dupe, a college student who quickly bonds with new roommate Hailey (Tracy Spiridakos) over their problems with abusive men, little realising that her new friend is a scheming psychopath. As in Hitchcock, tit-for-tat murders are proposed - Amanda’s violent ex-boyfriend in return for Hailey’s drunken father, but Kill for Me throws in more additional twists than the story can stand. The film also throws in some gratuitous Sapphic titillation, including an obligatory make-out-in-the-shower scene, but despite game playing from leads Cassidy and Spiridakos, the overwrought plotting gives the distinct impression that the filmmakers are getting steamed up over nothing.

Released on Blu-ray & DVD on Monday 20th May by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

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A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.