[Film Review] Kill Your Lover (2023)

When someone is in a toxic relationship, it can affect more than just their heart and mind. Their bodies can weaken or change due to the continued stress and unhappiness that comes from the toxicity. Their bodily reactions might become sharper; the constant tension might drain them of energy. The mental and emotional horror of a toxic relationship can become a physical horror, too. 

In Alix Austin and Keir Siewert's debut feature Kill Your Lover, the toxicity of an unhappy relationship is made tangible. The manifestations of the couple's escalating anger and hopelessness become the physical effects of a toxic relationship in this darkly funny body horror film, which had its worldwide premiere at the 2023 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

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Paige Gilmour and Shane Quigley Murphy star as doomed couple Dakota and Axel, respectively. The film begins with the two "lovers" (the word Axel insists on, as he does not like "boyfriend" or "partner") already very much at odds, then flashes back to a happier, giddier time when Dakota and Axel were in a blissful sex haze at the start of their relationship. Kill Your Lover juxtaposes the sexy and loving physical interactions the couple shared in their early days with the toxicity literally seeping through Alex's skin (which is also a toxicity that will rub off on Dakota). 

The pair is an odd couple from the start: Dakota is a sexually adventurous and sardonic punk rocker. She plasters one wall of her living room with an energetic collage of photos from her life, featuring her bandmates from Black Glove Killer. Many of the photos are provocative and show Dakota with former partners. Dakota's confidence and refusal to conform to societal norms, acted perfectly by Gilmour, make her a character that practically jumps off the screen; she's easy to root for from the jump.

While Dakota's decorations are uniquely NSFW, Axel treasures a bland lamp, a family heirloom from his grandparents. Axel is defined by his contrast to Dakota. She is covered in tattoos, with dyed hair and colorful makeup; he wears business casual clothing and seems overwhelmed (although initially intrigued) by Dakota's wilder ways. In a scene where Dakota confides in a friend about her plan to break up with Axel (with Axel eavesdropping), each half of the couple is shown on different sides of a split screen to underline just how out of alignment they are.

Gilmour and Murphy each create two very different versions of their characters. The film bounces between Dakota and Axel's idyllic and sex-filled beginning, filled with bright colors and exciting early romance, and their very muted world toward the end of the relationship. As they have both drained the other, the color is drained from the film. Even Dakota's freewheeling tattoo – "Everything Is Replaceable" – gets a bland update: "With Exceptions. " The acting of both leads is evocative and nuanced. They portray just how much this relationship has put them through the wringer; neither of them is the optimistic lover they were during their first night together.

In their directors' statement, Austin and Siewert (who are a married couple as well as collaborators) state, "Our aim was to encapsulate how relationships don't fall apart due to one single incident, but are often more a death by a thousand cuts." The recognition of this kind of slow relationship death makes this film not only very frightening but easy to identify with. 

Punk rock musician Suzi Moon's song "Dumb & In Luv" plays over the closing credits of Kill Your Lover. As Moon says about her song, “'Dumb & In Luv' is not an 'anti-love' song, it’s simply about how love has this incredible ability to reduce us to a puddle of goo." Her song is the apt soundtrack to a movie that shows just how much love – and its frightening deterioration into toxicity in romantic relationships – can have an all-encompassing physical effect on "lovers," as Axel would describe them. 

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