Some Guy Who Kills People is a 2012 American comedy-drama-horror film directed by Jack Perez and written by Ryan Levin.
This film is about Ken Boyd (Kevin Corrigan), a guy who is not long out of a mental hospital who is working at an ice-cream/burger parlor. The people that put him in the mental hospital start turning up dead, killed in horrific ways. He finds out he has a daughter while at the same time that these killings are happening in the town. Meanwhile the local Sheriff (Barry Bostwick) is going out with Ken's mom (Karen Black) and he starts to suspect that Ken is the killer. All the evidence is pointing that way, and Ken's estranged daughter catches him in a compromising position. It's not looking good for Ken.
Tropes:
- Autopsy Snack Time: Sheriff Fuller surveys the crime scene where Wade Hutchinson's body has been hacked into pieces with a machete while eating a box of popcorn he takes off his deputy.
- Bad Job, Worse Uniform: Ken's job at the ice cream parlour involves having to dress up in a giant ice cream come costume; both to hand out firers on the street and serve ice cream at parties.
- The Benchwarmer: Amy constantly talks about being on the basketball team. However, her father Ken eventually learns that she has never played in a game, and she explains that the coach needed eight players for a team, and only eight girls showed up for the tryouts.
- Birds of a Feather: Downplayed, but Stephanie's attraction to Ken is helped by how they're both outsiders in a sense. He's a former mental patient and she's a lonely, divorced English expat.
- Bound and Gagged: In his Flashback Nightmare to being tormented by the Jerk Jocks on the basketball team, Ken is bound to a chair and gagged with duct tape.
- Calling Card: The killer leaves cryptic clues on the bodies of the victims, and initially the sheriff cannot work out what they mean. However, once he discovers the connections between the victims, he realizes the clues relate to their numbers on the high school basketball team (an ace and king playing cards for no. 21, a V carved into his chest for no. 5, etc.).
- Catapult Nightmare: The opening scene has Ken suffering a Flashback Nightmare where he is tortured by the Jerk Jocks on the basketball team. He sits up suddenly as he wakes, only to discover he is late for work.
- Clueless Deputy: Sheriff Fuller's head deputy Ernie. Arriving at the first crime scene, where the victim has a hatchet buried in his skull, the sheriff makes a comment about having 'a splitting headache'. Thinking the sheriff as making a pun, Ernie proceeds to make a Hurricane of Puns about axes, to the sheriff's growing bewilderment. And, according to the sheriff, his other two deputies are even worse (they can't even properly surround a crime scene with tape).
- Cut-and-Paste Note: After the killings start, the sheriff receives a cut-and-paste note reading "An [picture of an eye] 4 an [picture of an eye]". This is the first of a series of such notes from the killer.
- Danger Takes a Backseat: Lyle Bagwell is murdered by the killer hiding in the cab of his pickup truck. The last shot of him is his bloody hand clawing desperately at the rear window.
- Desires Prison Life: Sheriff Fuller asks Ken why he was willing to take the fall for crimes he hadn't committed, and Ken replies that everything on the outside is so confusing that being sent back to the asylum where there is order and routine seemed like a good option.
- "Eureka!" Moment: The sheriff is struggling to find a connection between the victims aside from them all coming from the same town. His Clueless Deputy, who has a habit of making inappropriate jokes, remarks that if there were six more of them, they'd have a baseball team. That gives the sheriff his lightbulb moment as he grabs the yearbooks and discovers the victims had all been on the high school basketball team.
- False Confession: Ken doesn't exactly confess to the murders, but he offers no defence either, because he is Not Used to Freedom and being sent back to the asylum is looking pretty inviting to him. Sheriff Fuller figures it out when Ken doesn't know anything about the notes the killer sent the police.
- Flashback Nightmare: Ken has a recurring flashback nightmare to when he was Bound and Gagged and tortured by the Jerk Jocks on the high school basketball team.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Irv smashes a beer bottle over Sheriff Fuller when Fuller tries to arrest him. Fuller just shrugs this off, draws his gun and arrests him.
- Hurricane of Puns: Arriving at the first crime scene, where the victim has a hatchet buried in his skull, Sheriff Fuller makes a comment about having 'a splitting headache'. Thinking the sheriff as making a pun, his Clueless Deputy Ernie proceeds to make a Hurricane Of Puns about axes, to the sheriff's growing bewilderment.
- Inappropriate Hunger: Sheriff Fuller surveys the crime scene where Wade Hutchinson's body has been hacked into pieces with a machete while eating a box of popcorn he takes off his deputy.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: The inverted form. Sheriff Fuller is convinced Ken is making a False Confession, and talks to him about the notes the killer sent: saying he found the one reading "I am a monster" particularly chilling. Ken says "Thank you", and Fuller then tells him that there never was a note reading that. The "I am a monster" note was from the 'Son of Sam' case.
- I Want Grandkids: A variant occurs when Ken's mom finds out about his illegitimate daughter, who he never told his mom about. she’s very eager to meet the girl and says that she can stay and her son can leave if he feels so uncomfortable about Amy's presence.
- Jerk Jock: All the victims were Barbaric Bully basketball stars in high school.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: The killer. He kills a Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up who tortured his best friend Ken in high school and is continuing to bully him as an adult. He kills several other people who bullied Ken and are still cruel as adults while enjoying each death even more than the last. By the end of the movie, he has his and Ken's Mean Boss (although not too mean) tied up in a closet to torture and is reluctantly prepared to kill Ken's daughter so she can't testify against him.
- Kavorka Man: Mrs Prichard describes her late husband Marty—who was grossly overweight—as a ladies man who was frequently found in the company of loose women. Sheriff Fuller has a hard time believing this.
- A Lady on Each Arm: At his birthday party, the grossly overweight Marty Prichard is seen sitting in a chair with his arm around a pretty young woman sitting on each arm of the chair.
- Machete Mayhem: Wade Hutchinson, the second victim, is hacked to pieces with a machete; including having his head cut off.
- Mayor Pain: The mayor shows up at a crime scene to yell at the small sheriff's department for not solving the murder spree, even though it's his decision not to call in out-of-state cops.
- Not Used to Freedom: Sheriff Fuller asks Ken why he was willing to take the fall for crimes he hadn't committed, and Ken replies that everything on the outside is so confusing that being sent back to the asylum where there is order and routine seemed like a good option.
- Off with His Head!: Wade Hutchinson, victim no. 2, has his head hacked off with a machete.
- Old Cop, Young Cop: The intelligent but not infallible sheriff is about the same age as his girlfriend, who's a grandmother. His pun-making Clueless Deputy is decades younger.
- Serial Killer: Of the revenge variety.
- Smart People Play Chess: Played with by Sheriff Fuller (whose comments show him to be highly intelligent). He tells Ken that chess is his way of escaping from his problems. He doesn't play the game but, for some reason, thinking about it calms him down.
- Token Good Cop: Sheriff Fuller is a thorough and dedicated investigator, while his three deputies are bunglers who only ever do anything useful by accident.
- Trademark Favorite Food: One of the murdered bullies is constantly sucking lollipops.
- Wham Shot: When the Sheriff goes to get one last beer from the fridge after he and Ruth are about to break up because he had to arrest her son, he sees a mural made from newspaper clippings that Amy made on the refrigerator. He realizes that's why there were cut-up papers like the ones the killer used for his Cut-and-Paste Note, and that the signs that have been making him and the audience think Ken is guilty are misleading.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Ken's coworker and old classmate Irv constantly tells him that he shouldn't be working the same menial job Irv has (with Irv calling himself a loser) and his breakdown isn't his fault.
