The Killgrin is a supernatural horror film film directed by Joanna Tsani, and the cast includes Konstantina Mantelos, Adam Tsekhman, Cristo Fernández, Peter MacNeill, Fuad Ahmed.
The Killgrin is another horror movie where the monster is a metaphor, so if you're fed up with these kinds of films, you might want to skip this one, but, if you aren’t tired yet of the ever-growing list of horror movies diving into trauma and mental health, you might actually get something worthwhile out of it.
It's not perfect by any means, but there's enough here to keep it from being a total waste of time, especially if you go in with your expectations set accordingly.
The films starts with Miranda, (Konstantina Mantelos), who’s honestly the best thing in the whole movie, and she’s going through some rough stuff, such as her boyfriends suicide, so naturally, she ends up in the arms of a spiritual healer.
The healer tells her that her "aura" is infected by something called a Killgrin, and apparently, it’s a real nasty piece of work that feeds on sadness and misery, which means this thing must be thriving, because Miranda is practically a buffet of emotional damage.
At first, she’s skeptical, but then people around her start dropping like flies, looking like they’ve been through a blender, and suddenly she’s not so skeptical anymore, and now we’re off to the races, or at least, a slow, talk-heavy shuffle toward the finish line.
Now, there are some good things about the film, as the body horror and atmosphere are pretty solid, and you can tell the effects team had a lot of fun making this film, and if you're a fan of horror films with deep mental health themes, you might find some of the film fairly interesting with that aspect, too.
Konstantina Mantelos's performance as Miranda is the best part of the film though, and you believe every second of her descent into madness. You feel for her, and in some ways relate to her too, and I really enjoyed her performance, and not just the emotional side of her performance, either.
I enjoyed some of her scenes with Brian (Adam Tsekhman), and they both had good chemistry with each other, which offered some comic relief to the film, but even though it worked on its own, it also felt out of place with the overall tone and focus of the film.
A lot of people I think will have issues with the pacing of the film, and while the film has some deep themes and metaphors like a lot of horror movies these days (Hereditary, The Babadook, The Woman in the Yard, Smile 2) , it does feel more like a TED talk at times rather than a horror film, and the film loses some tension and interest when this happens, with the film dragging as a result.
That is purposeful of course, as the film is less about traditional horror aspects, and more about Miranda and her feelings, which some will like and appreciate, while others might be a bit fed up with this type of horror film.
I do respect what the movie’s trying to do and the metaphors behind it all, but you have also seen it all before, but better, and when then they show the damn thing, any emotional impact it might have had I felt was lost a bit.
The Killgrin is a film that starts off fine, but just loses its way the longer it goes on, but for a debut full feature from writer/director Joanna Tsanis, it wasn't too bad. It's not a total waste of time, as has its moments, but it just needed more focus to have the desired impact it was aiming for.
*The Killgrin was released in festivals in 2024, but made available to the masses in 2025, so I am counting it as a 2025 film.