Kill Me Again.....and again and again and again

Kill Me Again - Courtesy Bolte Media
Kill Me Again - Courtesy Bolte Media

Kill Me Again is a 2025 mystery/thriller from first time director Keith Jardine. If the name sounds familiar, you may have seen him in the octagon, the former UFC athlete spent most of his life boxing, fighting MMA in the UFC and on the Ultimate Fighter, and kickboxing. In 2009, he converted to life as a stuntman and actor with small roles in projects such as Breaking Bad and Bird Box. In Kill Me Again, 'The Dean of Mean' Jardine takes a seat in the director's chair for the first time and dives in to what many cinema fans call the 'Groundhog Day' genre. It gets its name from the 1993 Bill Murray film, and is distinguished by the characters experiencing the same day over and over again in some sort of time loop. Horror has latched onto this concept and cranked out countless titles such as the Happy Death Day franchise or more recently, Until Dawn. Kill Me Again introduces a unique spin to the genre when it tackles the idea of the person in the loop being the danger themselves.

In this film, Charlie is a notorious serial killer, the Midnight Mangler, and as he prepares to hone in on his latest victim, a waitress in a small diner, he realizes he is living the same torturous night over and over again. After initially embracing his position of a 'God' of this time loop, he soon realizes he needs to find his way out of this repeating night of grisly horror. When it comes to this genre of film, I think it has been done a lot, especially in recent years of horror. This concept needs something to really set itself apart and to provide longevity to the film because when the characters die over and over again, the stakes naturally grow smaller to the audience. I think this concept provided both reprieves, it set itself apart with using a POV of a murderer stuck in this time loop, someone you naturally were rooting against and didn't want to escape. Using the killer, they were also able to vary the kills, the approaches, the strategy of each day enough to keep it fresh deep into the nearly two hour run time.

Kill Me Again 3
Kill Me Again - Courtesy Bolte Media

Largely, this was a herculean effort from Brendan Fehr, who played the insidiously charismatic Charlie, you grew on you like a fungus throughout the film and you strangely found yourself rooting for at points. He was fantastic when he had to really show his darker side throughout the film but also excellent in the comedic bits and the absurdity of the situation. The Final Destination alum was a real revelation here and had to do some serious heavy lifting as the crux of the film. He was accompanied by a very charming Majandra Delfino as Amy, the waitress and constant target of Charlie, who did a great job as the straight man in this zany duo. I really enjoyed Jardine converging his two worlds together, looping in and casting many former MMA athletes such as himself, Tait Fletcher as the frycook, Michelle Waterson-Gomez as Sophie, and Maurice Greene and Donald Cowboy Cerrone as the police officers. As an MMA fan myself, it was so neat to see a lot of recognizable faces littered throughout the carnage.

I think tonally this film could have really suffered as it takes many twists and turns and flies through emotions, but Jardine's breezy directorial style gives it room to really breathe and flow naturally in a way that feels refreshing and light. It was a little long, I think taking about 15 minutes from the middle of the film during the heavy time loop sequences would have helped alleviate a bit of the redundancy that the audience can start to feel during the back half of the second act when it comes to these kind of films. I do think generally these films can putter out but this film gives quite the interesting curveball at the end to break through that effect.

All in all, this is a really fun and inviting look into the brain of a former fighter and stuntman who has taken on a new role, its a refreshing twist on an already fun and goofy genre coupled with exciting and powerful pefroamnces. I think this is a great group watch, its very entertaining and all around a good time. You can stream Kill Me Again on VOD platforms now.