By the end of Killing Ariel my mood had flip-flopped so much, I really wasn't sure what I thought of it. After a few days of introspection, a lot of internal arguing, and a couple moments of doubt, I've come to the conclusion that with a little bit tighter writing and a tad more cohesion it could've been a true sleeper of a low-budget flick - instead it's a film that, during its 86 minute run time, will manage to bore, confuse, and entertain you to varying degrees. I completely respect what writer Fred Calvert and his co-director David J. Negron, Jr. were trying to do and I can't deny its "It was a dark and stormy night" ambience does work sometimes but the script tends to rely on bending reality and dream sequences a bit too much, going to the well so many times it almost runs dry.

Some of the film's best moments come in the opening scene set back in 1933 when youngster Ricky gets out of bed one evening to walk in just after his mother has taken a shotgun to his dad only to turn the weapon on herself. There's also a creepy, bald-headed man there who is her lover (and an incubus to boot). It's a very cool kick-off to the proceedings and fairly intense but once the movie shifts to show Ricky (Michael Brainard) all grown-up with a loving wife and two kids things slow down to a crawl for the next hour-or-so.

Ricky's been seeing a psychiatrist and it's during his discussion with him that we're told the story of a weekend gone terribly wrong. Seems that he's been haunted by nightmares of our incubus since that fateful evening and during a weekend away from his family he ends up picking up the fairly attractive, younger Ariel (Axelle Grelet) to take her to the remote house he grew up in and have a tryst. While there he starts feeling guilt for his infidelity and is plagued by tons of visions. It's during said visions that the script tends to careen back and forth in time so that, eventually, things just feel like a snake eating its own tail.

Eventually Ricky does exactly what our title mentions and kills Ariel during one of his freak-outs. But she just won't stay dead as they bring up the pretty cool idea of Ricky being stuck in a constant loop having to keep killing Ariel over and over and over again. This gives the movie some rare bloodshed moments (like when he cuts her up with an axe) and takes a demented turn to silly humour at times - for proof just wait for the pickle jar moment. It's a much needed livening up to the proceedings and once Calvert and Negron, Jr. trot out their twists in the finale things and started to make some sense I got more satisfaction out of this than I was expecting to.

In the title role, soap opera veteran Brainard gets to wildly swing between emotions and he doesn't do that terrible a job at it. Meanwhile, Grelet spends a good portion of the movie with no clothes on (thank you!) and looks pretty good which helps balance out the fact she's sort of weak in her role. Also of note is Joseph Gatt as our incubus simply because he's just so damn creepy looking.

When compared with a lot of the other low-budget and independent genre films MTI have been bringing to the home video market, Killing Ariel stands above a good chunk of them. It's well made enough and has an interesting premise to keep you watching and, unlike other MPI releases such as Death on Demand and Study Hell, it never feels amateurish or half-baked. You can tell that Calvert and Negron, Jr. worked hard on structuring their story it's just unfortunate it has to stumble a few times to get to where they wanted it to. (Chris Hartley, 7/1/09)

Directed By: David J. Negron, Jr., Fred Calvert.
Written By: Fred Calvert.

Starring: Michael Brainard, Axelle Grelet, Miguel Nalera, Joseph Gatt.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: The tranfer here is clean looking and free of debris and despite looking a little bit soft and suffering a few moments of jagged lines it came across as perfectly acceptable.

Extras: The disc we received only contained the trailer. The retail version also contains a making of featurette entitled, "Behind the Screams - The Making of Killing Ariel".

Visit MTI Home Video for more info.