A young director, a fresh-faced cast… A series of bloody knives mailed to the team's doorstep? Despite this intriguing set-up, Christos Massalas (Copa Loca, Broadway [+leggi anche:
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scheda film]) crafts a surprisingly tame mockumentary about a team shooting a serial-killer thriller flick as they encounter various obstacles along the way. Starting off with a promising premise but never ultimately paying off, Killerwood had its world premiere in Thessaloniki’s Meet the Neighbours+ competition. This movie also marks a new entry in the mockumentary film-about-a-film genre, accompanying Stratos Tzitzis's The Philosopher (I Have Something to Say) as another comedic meta-film at Thessaloniki.

Douchebag up-and-coming director Titos (Vaggelis Daousis) prepares to shoot his giallo-inspired serial-killer thriller Killerwood – a spin on “Hollywood”, he proudly proclaims – having already cast lead actress Elsa (Elsa Lekakou, also seen at the festival in Kyuka: Before Summer’s End [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Kostis Charamountanis
scheda film]), a student investigating a string of murders in Athens. He casts Harry (Foivos Papdopoulos) opposite Elsa, selecting him over the more reserved Michalis (Michalis Pitidis). Various actors and collaborators begin to drop out, while bloody knives and strange boxes filled with what appear to be bloodied guts occasionally show up addressed to Titos.

The filmmaker has gathered a strong cast: many of the movie’s laughs come from Daousis’s delightfully rendered Titos, whom the actor plays as that type of hipster film-bro that people love to hate, so self-important that he fails to realise how people around him are laughing at his attempted machismo. He demands a red dress with rooms decorated with all-red furniture (“for foreshadowing”), fancying himself as a genius when he hears a crew member’s ringtone and wants to turn the melody into the film’s soundtrack (Massalas also acts as the composer in addition to the editor and sound designer). Lekakou plays Elsa ping-ponging off of Titos as his polar opposite: an actress perpetually disturbed by everyone’s nonchalance, affectionate towards the sensitive Harry.

Massalas doesn’t overdo the mockumentary style, opting out of crash zooms and more standard trademarks of the comedy-forward genre. While not necessarily detracting from Killerwood's intended style, it leads the film into a bland limbo between drama and comedy. He occasionally lets DoP Dimitris Lambridis drift with the camera, but moments are rarely crafted around the lensing (one possible missed opportunity being an intrusive shaky camera following a subject who does not wish to be followed).

Although the film will prompt a few laughs, risks are hardly taken, leading to so much narrative buildup without any satisfying outcomes: a threatening message, the repeated occurrence of bloody boxes and even Elsa potentially leaving the production are never followed through on. The filmmaker also remains relatively hands-off with dramatic irony outside of a few select moments, failing to employ a device that otherwise might have sharpened the film beyond its current narrative form.

Killerwood is a Greek production by Massalas's Copa-Loca Films, co-produced by Faliro House Productions, Asterisk*, ERT SA and the Greek Film Centre. It is currently seeking world sales representation.