For this seedy story, Jim Thompson threw his crew of ravaged riff-raff—gin-joint regulars, small-time pushers, gawky strippers, and other bottom-feeders—into an off-season coastal resort just begging for a wrecking ball. Bedridden Luane DeVore (Loretta Gross), a festering hypochondriac, unnerves the lowlife residents with a string of gossip-mongering phone calls. She’s got the goods on just about everybody, and the goods go from bad to worse. As the gossip spreads its terrible contagion, the town’s dead-enders respond in kind, but not in kindness. Pretty soon it becomes clear: someone’s got to kill the caller. Maggie Greenwald’s bleak film is as down-and-out as its crumbling beachfront, meaning she’s given Thompson his derelict due. The Kill-Off does leave us a single crumb of hope: Myra (Jorjan Fox of CSI fame), daughter of a petty bar owner, has the keys to a car, and there is a road out of town.

—Steve Seid

• Written by Greenwald, based on the novel by Jim Thompson. Photographed by Declan Quinn. With Loretta Gross, Andrew Lee Barrett, Jackson Sims, Jorjan Fox. (95 mins, Color, 35mm, From Films Around the World)