Kill or Be Killed

Spotting David Heavener in the cast, one might understandably think that this is another vanity project for him, where he writes, directs, produces, acts, and provides the musical score. Actually, he only has two roles in this movie - acting and producing. Possibly due to the fact that he was directed by someone else, he comes across better than he does in his vanity projects - he's clean-shaven and looks neater, and his performance is somewhat better than in his other movies. That is about all that's positive I can say about "Kill Or Be Killed". Believe it or not, it looks cruder and cheaper than Heavener's vanity projects. It seems to have all been filmed in small fleabag hotel rooms, abandoned buildings, and in backyards, often with no sign of set decoration or anything else brought in to spruce up the scenes. Often I had the feeling that the filmmakers were making it up as they went along, with the cheapjack feel and also the slow-moving plot, an unsympathetic main character, and an ending that is far from satisfying and feels like the filmmakers also made it up on the spot because they had enough footage to reach an acceptable running time. By the way, this movie seems to have fallen in the public domain, which is not surprising because no one in their right mind would think that maintaining the copyright would be worth the time and money.