Kill Me, a thrillingly complex dark comedy starring Charlie Day, had a journey to the screen almost as twisty as the film, writer-director Peter Warren explained at a SXSW screening Monday.
The film stars Day as Jimmy, a man who wakes up with slit wrists, in a tub of his own blood. He calls 911 and tells the operator (Allison Williams) that he needs help — and that it wasn’t a suicide attempt.
Someone else did this to him. He’s sure of it.
Soon Jimmy and the operator, Margot, are going down a rabbit hole through Jimmy’s past and the list of people who might have had reason to both do him in and make it look like a suicide. The murderer’s-row cast includes a Breaking Bad‘s Giancarlo Esposito, The Boys’ Aya Cash, The Righteous Gemstones‘ Tony Cavalero, and Suspiria icon Jessica Harper.
The Development Process of Kill Me
You’ve probably seen that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia meme from a classic episode in which Day’s character goes into conspiracy mode. Imagine that, but played a little differently.
Warren doesn’t take the suicide angle lightly in Kill Me — the film, funny as it is, treats Jimmy’s battle with mental illness with respect, nuance, and compassion. Warren worked on a suicide-prevention hotline prior to the film.
When he first brought the idea to his agents, he saw it as a series, and they agreed. But when no one bought the idea, he wrote it, on spec, as a feature.
Meanwhile, Day and Keith Goldberg, a producer and executive with Dark Horse Entertainment (Umbrella Academy) were looking for a writer for a planned Netflix series. Warren submitted his script for Kill Me, which was then called Murder Suicide, as a writing sample.
Goldberg was impressed with the story, but also how sensitively the script dealt with Jimmy’s depression.
“I read this script as a writing sample for the TV show, and I said to Charlie, ‘Hey, I found our writer for our show. But also, like, this script is really good, we should just go make this,'” Goldberg said at Monday’s post-screening Q&A.
The TV show didn’t end up happening, but the movie did. Dark Horse teamed up with XYZ, which approached Vanishing Angle executive Natalie Metzger. Vanishing Angle and XYZ had previously worked together on the smart horror film The Wolf of Snow Hollow.
“As I was reading it, I was like, ‘Gosh, this feels just like a script that I read.’ And the more I read, I’m like, ‘No, I’ve read this script before,'” Metzger recalled Monday.
She realized the had read Murder Suicide during the pandemic, an odd time for development in general. She advanced the idea of shooting the film in the Salt Lake City area, where it was ultimately shot.
“She’s a magician when it comes to making things for the right price,” Goldberg said.
The film, which underwent its helpful title change during development, leaves many things open to interpretation. Jimmy is at times suspicious of certain people around him, and we don’t always know if he’s right to be fearful of them, or if his mental illness is making him paranoid.
“I don’t think anyone in that whole constellation wishes anything for Jimmy other than health and happiness, but it’s still kind of a disaster, and they have a lot of very valid feelings of resentment, and they handle it with various levels of success,” Warren noted.
The film is now seeking distribution.
Kill Me premiered at SXSW and plays again today. You can read more of our SXSW coverage here.
Main image: Charlie Day as Jimmy uses a blacklight to look for clues in Kill Me. Vanishing Angle