The Kill-Off

When you need a dose of true grit, you can count on films based on the bleak, seamy novels of Jim Thompson (The Grifters; After Dark, My Sweet). In The Kill-Off, a low-budget noir directed by Maggie Greenwald (The Ballad of Little Jo), an evil, gossiping invalid (Loretta Gross) traffics in harsh truths, brutally spoken; her dopey, passive husband (Steve Monroe) gets wind of his wife's $10,000 stash, but it turns out he's not the only one who wants her dead. Evan Lurie's hypnotic score, nonglam actors, and raw, vertiginous camera work conjure the dreariness of Thompson's world and slam home his hard-boiled moral: Knowledge is power — but not quite enough power to ward off a bullet to the head. A-