Kiss or Kill looks at first sight to be the umpteenth film about a young criminal couple on the run through a barren landscape. One might think after phenomenal films such as Badlands by Terence Malick and They Live by Night by Nicholas Ray that nothing could be added. However Bill Bennett surpasses both Ray and Malick – as only becomes apparent in the course of the film – in one horrific and merciless variation on the genre.Nikki and Al are petty crooks, borstal boys, who cooperate on the lines of an old and trusted recipe: Nikki picks up drunken married men in bars, after which Al undresses and robs the drugged victims. One day things go wrong. The victim dies in their hands. In his baggage they find an explosive pedophile video tape: the well-known sportsman Zipper Doyle does his thing on the tape with a little boy. Nikki and Al flee town, but are soon chased by both the police and by Zipper Doyle. On their increasingly desperate flight, they leave a trail of mysterious bodies behind them.To demonstrate the special talent of Bennett, this programme also includes his older fake-documentary Malpractice – Every Mother’s Nightmare, in which a scarily real-looking birth goes wrong because an arrogant young doctor makes wrong decisions. Watching this film would be most ill advised for pregnant women. (GjZ)
