Afternoon Delight

Afternoon Delight: ‘I Love You So Much It’s Killing Them’, A Darkly Funny Short About A Female Serial Killer

What better way to prepare for the fast-approaching weekend than by indulging in the some of the Internet’s most well-done web content? Take advantage of your lunch break and treat yourself to Afternoon Delight, Decider’s carefully curated picks of the best short-form content available on the world wide web. This week we’re spotlighting I Love You So Much It’s Killing Them, a delightfully dark short film.

We’ve heard the stories of many a fledgling serial killer; disturbed little boys torturing animals for fun, lights things on fire, displays other signs of instability. But what if that fledgling killer was a little girl? And what if she didn’t waste any time on killing animals, because by elementary school, she’d already resorted to pushing her classmates in front of buses for sport? That’s exactly what goes down in I Love You So Much It’s Killing Them, a bleakly funny 15-minute film directed by Joel Ashton McCarthy and written by McCarthy and Mike Doaga.

Vivian (Alex Duncan) is a bright accountant with very few vices; leave her alone with numbers and a few skulls to crush, and she’s happy. Her world gets turned upside down, however, when she falls for Alex (Clayton Chitty), the man of her dreams – or so she thinks. She begins to throw caution to the wind, abandoning her old meticulous ways in favor of doing things that she thinks might help her win Alex’s heart. Just as Vivian deceives the people around her with her unassuming appearance, it soon turns out that Alex might not be everything what he seems… And, well, you’ll have to see for yourself what kind of bloody conclusion comes.

Stylishly directed and snappily edited, I Love You So Much It’s Killing Them is a morbidly fun affair. Duncan’s subdued performance as Vivian offers laughs and a strange amount of empathy, especially given that she’s a cold-blooded killer. If the witty writing and entertaining nature of the short wasn’t enough, the film also subverts genre expectations at pretty much every turn. No, not all serial killers are men, and they’re certainly not incapable of love. Vivian is as feminine and bookish as they come, and she is overwhelmed with love for Alex, despite his bro-ish tendencies.

Watching Vivian’s journey unfold is a terrifying treat, and we can’t help but wonder why there aren’t more great films featuring female serial killers out there – especially given how good this one is. Be sure to stream the short above, and follow I Love You So Much It’s Killing Them and McCarthy on Twitter.