One of the standout films at this year’s Fantastic Fest was Who Killed the KLF? directed by Chris Atkins, the behind the music story of the titular project consisting of Bill Drummond, (who I was surprised to learn used to manage Echo & the Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes,) and Jimmy Cauty, (formerly of a band called Brilliant,) and the barrage of stunts they enacted over the course of their career, ending with a 23 year self imposed exile after a notorious final act that feels pulled straight from a Graham Greene short story. Part chart topping band, part boundary pushing experimental artists and part nihilism fueled pre-internet trolls, the two blazed fast and bright making decisions that seemed calculated and part of a larger concept but, as the documentary reveals, were often orchestrated in a moment’s notice as part of a passing whim. From crop circles and faux animal sacrifice to inviting music journalists to experience a strange ritual in the vein of The Wicker Man it seems like the duo’s primary aim was to get people’s attention.
The success of their antics is evident in the footage shown throughout the doc, from television news stories to amateur recordings of illegal raves the group hosted, as well as the variety of talking heads scattered throughout. Music industry vets and even legendary comic book author Alan Moore, (credited as Alan Moore, writer and sorcerer,) who once loaned his own house to be used as a venue for a KLF event, all have uniquely compelling experiences with the group to offer up to their larger narrative. These interviews, TV clips, fan footage and several never-before-heard audio recordings of Drummond and Cauty work together to make Who Killed the KLF? feel like a complete retrospective on a group that in their heyday were moving too quickly and unpredictably to follow.
At about an hour and a half runtime the film feels tightly edited and efficient with the footage director Chris Atkins chose to employ to get the KLF’s decades long story down to only the most essential, while still giving a full account of how they started, what they did, and as the title suggests, what “killed” them in the public eye. The group’s music, sprinkled throughout, is chock full of earworms that infuse the footage with energy and rhythm and help the narrative groove through the various seasons of the band’s life, and without spoiling too much, its (or its creators) second life, so to speak.
While I was unfamiliar with the KLF prior to viewing the documentary, having been just a kid when they were at their peak, Atkins’ film inspired sincere interest from me in both the music produced by the KLF as well as their history of social experiments. I nodded my head along to 3 a.m. Eternal and laughed out loud when I saw them bring out grind-core group Extreme Noise Terror to perform with them in the pop radio space of the BRIT awards (their award from which was apparently buried somewhere near Stonehenge,) and I was fascinated to see how they adjusted their image constantly from subjects as wide reaching as Doctor Who to The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Say what you want about the group’s irresponsible stunts but this documentary clearly illustrates that if nothing else you could not put the KLF in a box, and certainly not a coffin. The KLF is dead, long live the KLF.
