‘Capture Kill Release’ is a Masterful Trek Through the Homicidal and Psychopathic Mind (Review)

Directed by: Nick McAnulty, Brian Allan Stewart

Cast: Jennifer Fraser, Jon Gates, Farhang Ghajar

I’ve been noticing a very positive trend within the found footage subgenre: filmmakers are actually putting in very intense, very meticulous work while assembling these pictures. It seems as though the briefly perpetuated myth that found footage was the easiest kind of film to make has begun to die, weeding out the unfit to film from the fit to film. I’d actually argue it is among the hardest of film styles to successfully pull off. But with recent films like Creep, Hell House LLC, #Screamers, Exists, Be My Cat: A Film for Anne, and The Dark Tapes, it is becoming apparent that more serious, and technically polished filmmakers are setting out to empower the subgenre. It’s working, in a big way.

But where does a pic like Capture Kill Release fit in? Right there, snug at the top, occupying the same respectable space that houses the aforementioned films. Capture Kill Release is, for lack of a better, or more respectful term, fucking horrifying. This is the kind of flick that leaves the viewer a bit damaged, even if only for a brief time.

There’s absolutely no prep to the meat on the bone. We immediately meet a young 30-ish couple who are planning, extensively, to capture some random victim, kill him and then dismember his body. That’s the full mission for the full film. But as is the case with any exceptional movie, there’s a bigger conflict tucked into the folds of the film, and that conflict will most certainly have a powerful effect on their murderous plans, and more importantly, the viewer.

The performances in this film are… well, to die for. Jennifer Fraser’s bubbly, anxious, astoundingly excited demeanor is paralyzing. She’s absolutely overjoyed – to the point that controlling her animated outbursts becomes a challenge – about murdering a man. It’s frightening, truly. And her partner in crime, while not quite as stoked as his kinky and homicidal lover, is making all the proper plans and preparations, few concerns in the world. To see these two so captivated by this horrific plan just blows the mind.

Beyond the concept and the performers, there’s yet another dark angle to the picture, and that angle is necrophilia, or, at the very least an intangible connection to necrophilia. These two are aroused by murder. They’re turned on by draining a body of its plasma, and on an occasion or so, they indulge this depraved desire. Now, neither ever actually motion to have sex (of some nature) with a corpse, but the undertones of necrophilia are powerful enough to be recognized as borderline overtones… and that’s just wildly disgusting. More scars for the psyche.

So much darkness pervades this film and yet it is one of the brightest of its kind. Although the general idea behind the film doesn’t beam with originality, the execution of the film, the utterly captivating performances and wonderfully nauseating graphic gore (and good lord it is indeed graphic, giving legendary gross out scenes in two huge picture like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Scarface a valid run for their money) more than make up for anything that could even be contemplated as a weakness. Capture Kill Release is a masterful trek through the homicidal and psychopathic mind.

Rating: 5/5