And so it came to pass that in the year 2020, the Millennial Killer, a film I had the pleasure of writing music for won the Wallachia International Film Festival for best independent film. I was overcome with joy to be able to be part of its creation and celebrated long into the night!

Being the composer for the project, I was dragged screaming out of my comfort zone and into a far different style of film score than usual. But, that said, it was a project I immensely enjoyed and loved being part of. It’s always weird writing music outside of your comfort zone. One feels like Linus without his blanket, or worse, Ren without his Stimpy.

The first thing that struck me about the film was the estate agent, played by the exceptional Simon Berry. He managed to embody not only a fantastic character, a deeply troubled and mesmerising sociopath, but also embodied my hatred of millennials too. I hope the police don’t raid my house as there is one fermenting in the bath as I type. Glorious! I bet it’ll taste great!

Simon’s acting is truly something exceptional, especially within the Indy circuit which features some amazing talent, and then some awful people like me that somehow get the occasional role in films, and I personally loved his performance to bits. He was the kind of actor I’d love to work with, intense, energetic and with a fantastic grasp of his character. From the moment he first appears on screen to his final scene, he is uncomfortable to watch and really drags you into the film in a way even big budget studio actors tend to fail at.

He isn’t the only thing about this film that’s great about The Millennial Killer. The rest of the cast are truly wonderful to watch, and I love how the film lets you get to know them, and it does so very quickly, which is not only a wonderful sign that the cast is good but also that the script really knows how to hit home quickly and efficiently without wasting time on unnecessary fluff to pad the movie out from being your usual gore splat death flick. The clever and enigmatic direction really allows this to happen and I found myself really enjoying writing the score. The only problem was that I kept getting distracted by just watching the film, which for me is a good sign the film is a great one, and one of the reasons I loved it was because it had great rewatch value.

The estate agent whom Simon plays so exceptionally begins to fall in love with one of his potential victims played by the talented Alice Mulholland who I expect great things from in the future… After murdering her vastly inferior boyfriend and keeping her locked up for weeks the estate agent develops a strange attraction to her, which is comical to me as her boyfriend is rather annoying and she’d probably end up hiring a hitman to snuff him out in the future anyway… In the background he kills a healthy amount of irritating millennials much to my enjoyment.

I think the only thing that really doesn’t work for me is the explanation on why he is doing things. Not because it’s a bad explanation, but because I think the film is much scarier without it. I like the concept of a man committing murder with reasons unknown… To me that is more terrifying than something I can understand. It’s kind of like when they add to characters like Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger, which end up taking away more than they add. Fear comes from the unknown. The film offers an interesting dive into human nature and was easy to relate to because I myself do not like millennials much. Did you know that they have avocado lattes? The very thought is vile to me especially seeing as how avocados are getting more endangered. (Thanks to the blight of Veganism plaguing our planet.)

Overall though it was a great film to score and I loved working on it. I feel the sound mix could have been better, as it’s my main bugbear with films I write music for, and some reviews put that the film didn’t even have music which is mega weird as I’m sure I wrote it, and that it’s there, but hey – it won an international film festival. It made my day.

If you like my work and are interested in seeing millennials getting their just desserts, and if you really like a good, well installed chandelier from time to time, you should give it a watch at some point.

Special shout out to the entire team. You are all incredible people and whilst I’m an ugly grumpy weirdo goblin recluse with aspergers and dyspraxia, I think the world of you for creating this beautiful masterpiece.

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