movies
BY MOLLY TEMPLETON
PATRICK O’DRISCOLL AS
BLOWPOP THE CLOWN
IN KILLING ME
Serial Killing 101
Local filmmaker Henry Weintraub premieres Killing Me
M
any of us secretly harbor unreasonable dreams.
Maybe you want to be an Olympic medalist at
a sport you’ve never tried, or fantasize about
starring in blockbuster action fi lms but have never set foot
on stage. I like to imagine that in some alternate word, I
learned to dance at a young age. (In reality, when I was
little I wanted to be a librarian.)
Aaron Schwartz (Patrick O’Driscoll)’s dream is slightly
more troubling: “As far back as I can remember,” he
says in voiceover, “I’ve wanted to be a serial killer.” He
studies the greats, learning (and trying to use) their tactics;
he imagines himself on magazine covers, the focus of a
shocked nation’s attention.
But Aaron lacks whatever it is that makes a person
capable of serial killing — and it’s not like serial killing is
the sort of thing where you can easily put in 10,000 hours
of practice. He fi dgets discontentedly inside his normal
life, working at the post offi ce and going home to his pretty
wife. His fi xation remains private — until a real serial killer
arrives in his sleepy little town.
That sleepy little town, of course, is Eugene (mostly).
Killing Me is director Henry Weintraub’s latest feature-
length fi lm, following the horror comedy Melvin and the
noirish The Darkest Corner of Paradise. Killing Me sits
neatly in a space between those two fi lms.
If Aaron had a different hobby, his story might make
for a quiet drama about an unfulfi lled man. Instead, his
aspirations give the fi lm a dry sense of humor that’s most
delightfully apparent when Aaron dresses up as a clown
named Blowpop in an attempt to get close to some potential
young victims. “My dad really hates clowns,” a snotty child
tells him. “And so do I.”
Like Weintraub’s previous fi lms, Killing Me was created
by a sizable cast and crew dotted with friends, family
(his wife Sara appears briefl y, shares credit for hair and
WOODY
ALLEN
ALEC
BALDWIN
ROBERTO
BENIGNI
PENÉLOPE
CRUZ
JUDY
DAVIS
makeup, and is responsible for the fi lm’s stylish and fun
graphic design) and other talented locals. His close friend
O’Driscoll (who also produced and did audio engineering
for the fi lm) starred in Weintraub’s last two movies; Joe van
Appen, who plays Charles, studied acting with Weintraub
at the UO; musician Zac Sawyer, of The Sawyer Family,
once again contributes an eerie, apt score (as he did for
Darkest Corner).
This time, Zac isn’t the only Sawyer involved. Killing
Me is based on a story by Ryan Nyburg, who produced
Melvin, but the screenplay was written by Jarod Rhoades
— also known as guitarist Judge Jarod Sawyer. Weintraub
and O’Driscoll transformed Nyburg’s story into an outline,
then handed it to Rhoades, who had mentioned to Weintraub
that he was interested in writing. Weintraub says Rhoades,
“used a lot of the outline but also put his own spin on it. I
think the whole process was very benefi cial to the project
because we got so many different takes on the same idea.”
Those different takes give Aaron’s serial-killer fi xation
a lot of depth, and the fi lm spends plenty of time building
his personality and obsession. Less time is spent on his
relationship with pretty, bubbly Erin (Sonya Davis), and
while this makes perfect sense — their relationship is a
thing that Aaron stumbles into, not the real focus of his
life — it also renders the fi lm’s domestic scenes a little
less believable. Erin and Aaron seem less like a married
couple than like unlikely roommates, still getting to know
each other.
Odder sparks appear when Aaron uncovers the
local killer’s identity and seeks him out, hoping for
an apprenticeship of sorts. What ensues nods back to
Weintraub’s earlier, gorier work, but a streak of darkness
runs through the whole enterprise. Revenge doesn’t
motivate the killings; nothing motivates the killings. The
murderer, though he’s something of a natural, doesn’t even
JESSE
EISENBERG
GRETA
GERWIG
7 /5
ELLEN
PAGE
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A special premiere screening of Killing Me takes place 8:30pm Saturday,
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“‘To Rome With Love’ has pleasures galore.”
seem to take much pleasure in death. It’s just what he does,
like a bad habit.
Killing Me was made on a tiny budget — about $3,000
— and shot over 11 days last summer. Its strength lies in
the confl ict between the small, internal story of a frustrated
man and the peculiar scope of his unlikely dream, which
can only be realized in the strangest of fashions.
The fi lm marks another solid step in Weintraub’s evo-
lution as an independent fi lmmaker — an evolution that’s
evident not just on screen. Over the years, Weintraub’s goals
have changed. “I feel as though when I was younger I had a
very unrealistic dream of becoming this famous Hollywood
director,” he says. “All I needed to do was fi nish my fi rst
feature length fi lm, someone would see it, like it, distribute
it and give me millions of dollars to make my next movie.
“The reality is,” Weintraub continues, “Killing Me is
my fourth feature-length fi lm and will more than likely end
up like my other three: being distributed by a small DVD
distribution company while I tour around Oregon showing
it as much as possible and selling copies off of my website
and through local businesses. The difference now is, I’m
OK with that.”
Weintraub’s movies don’t come across as calling cards,
as a means of selling himself to the fi lm industry. They’re
fi ercely independent, with a dark sense of humor, and it’s ob-
vious that these are the stories Weintraub and his writers and
crew want to tell. The end goal isn’t fame and fortune, but
the satisfaction of making a movie, and that’s what they do.
“Movie making is something I love doing, and reaching
someone who likes my movies is incredibly rewarding,”
Weintraub says. ”But the most fun and rewarding part of
making a movie is making a movie.”
ew
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EUGENE WEEKLY JULY 5, 2012
19