By Robert Scucci
| Published
Revenge is a dish best served cold, and Some Guy Who Kills People is one of those horror comedies that takes this sentiment quite literally. Once again, Tubi has hit it out of the park by making this title available for streaming because it’s one of those films that flew under my radar for way too long, and deserves the attention of any avid horror comedy fan who likes a main course of violence with a healthy heaping of humor on the side. Playing out as a simple revenge plot gone wrong, Some Guy Who Kills People is smart, sentimental, gory, and ends up taking you to an unexpected place as you root for the villain because he’s actually kind of a nice guy.
Well, he’s kind of nice until a bunch of people who messed with him when he was in high school start turning up dead and he’s the primary suspect in their slayings.
Ken Boyd’s Sad, Pathetic Life
Some Guy Who Kills People centers on Ken Boyd (Kevin Corrigan), a man in his 30s who spent most of his adult life institutionalized after having a series of depressive episodes that resulted in a nervous breakdown. When Ken was a high school student, he was bound, gagged, beaten, and cut up by a group of five students, who are all now living happy lives, running successful businesses, and generally having a great time. Working at an ice cream shop, Ken doesn’t have a lot going for him, and he spends most of his work day dressed as a cone of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Ken’s home life in Some Guy Who Kills People is equally depressing because he lives with his mother, Ruth (Karen Black), who always reminds him that he should be doing more with his life. Ken is also an extremely talented artist, but his drawings are troubling because he often commits his violent fantasies to paper, which mostly resemble the murders that take center stage in Some Guy Who Kills People.
The Family Dynamic
When the bodies of Ken’s tormentors start showing up sliced, stabbed, and dismembered, Sheriff Walt Fuller (Barry Bostwick) is put in charge of the case. I wouldn’t call Walt an incompetent officer, but he’s a small town guy who finds himself asking the department for outside help because he’s never dealt with a serial killer before. Walt is also dating Ruth, and often visits the Boyd residence for dinner where he has awkward exchanges with Ken, who likes to go on solo night drives that place him suspiciously close to the crime scenes that are being actively investigated.
To complicate matters, Ken learns that he has an 11-year-old daughter named Amy (Ariel Gade), who’s living with her adoptive family, the Wheelers. Making a deal with her mom, Janet (Janie Haddad), Amy is given the opportunity to live with Ken, her biological father, for a week to get to know him.
Ken takes a while to warm up to Amy in Some Guy Who Kills People, but he tries his best to be the father figure she imagined he would be. He also becomes romantically involved with a woman named Stephanie (Lucy Davis) when Amy realizes that he’s lonely and convinces him to ask for her number.
Between agonizing ice-cream shop shifts with his best friend, Irv (Leo Fitzpatrick), spending time with his newfound daughter, and testing his luck on the romantic front, Ken becomes the primary person of interest in the murders that are being investigated by Walt, putting him in a difficult spot because he wants everybody who made him suffer in the past to pay for how they mistreated him.
The Investigation
Suspecting that Ken’s nightly drives have something to do with the body count that’s terrorizing the community in Some Guy Who Kills People, Walt follows him closely. Meanwhile, Amy also wants to know where her father is disappearing to, and follows him to a crime scene that confirms her suspicion that her father is a serial killer. Ken, who’s trying to reconcile his desire for revenge with his need to live a normal life outside of the loony bin, finds himself compromised but insists that he’s innocent despite the damning evidence that’s piling up against him.
A Comedy Horror That You Can Sink Your Teeth Into
Some Guy Who Kills People does the unthinkable by making you truly care for Ken as he gets so close to having a normal, fulfilling life while everything starts to fall apart around him. Through flashback sequences, you learn just how brutally he was abused before being institutionalized, and it’s clear that his past wounds never had a chance to fully heal. While I found myself sympathizing with Ken for being dealt a bad hand in life, I also felt proud of him for finally standing up for himself.
Watching Ken coach Amy at basketball when he learns that she’s a benchwarmer is just one of many heartwarming scenes that made me think, “this guy couldn’t possibly have cut off somebody’s head with a machete and written menacing letters to the police.” And as Walt continues his investigation (while rattling off puns like “let me axe you something”), there are moments that will make you wonder if Ken is actually the killer, or just a victim of circumstance.
If you want to piece the mystery together yourself while rooting for the bad guy, it comes with strong recommendations that you stream Some Guy Who Kills People on Tubi as soon as you’re craving an ice cream sundae that goes just a little too nuts for Amy and Stephanie to handle.
Leave a Reply