We’ve all heard stories about nightmare roommates, whether we have lived through it ourselves, or have just been the commiserating ear for a friend dealing with it. More often than not, these situations are compounded by the fact that there isn’t a quick, easy way out of the ordeal – be it financial constraints or just simply that the person can’t, or won’t, leave. It’s an unfortunate coming into adulthood rite of passage that makes for a miserable living predicament. How to Kill Your Roommates and Get Away with It takes a darkly comedic look at what happens when a person is pushed to their brink after putting up with what they consider to be the worst roommates in the world. 

Directed by Pat Kusnadi, it stars Nicole Cinaglia as Ellie, a college student who is beyond fed up with her roommates April (Lara Jean Sullivan) and boyfriend Clyde (Eric Reingrover). When we first get introduced to her, she’s bemoaning about the latest annoyances from these two over lunch with her best friend, Jacob (Hunter Johnson). Shot with stylized flashbacks, we get a good sense for what kind of people April and Clyde are, and moreover, the revolving door of questionable friends they constantly have over. There are the typical “bad roommate” offenses as well – stolen parking spots, frequent partying, using Ellie’s room for hookups – that allow you to quickly understand Ellie’s frustration. For his part, Jacob, too, is sympathetic and understanding to Ellie’s plight.

Now, at this point, most people would be saying “Why doesn’t she just move, or kick them out?” Predictably, it isn’t that easy, as Ellie is a broke college student with little resources to just immediately find another place. The last straw comes for Ellie when a heated altercation between her and April becomes life-threatening. While relaying this to Jacob, he offers up a disturbing solution – to murder April and Clyde via chloroform he just so happens to have access to.

From there, things quickly fall apart for the film, as it attempts to play out the rest of the story with a confusing mesh of dream sequences, fake-outs, and real-time moments that form a jumbled mess. It relies too heavily on the deceptive bait and switch technique of leading the viewer to believe what they’re watching is actually happening, only to pull the rug from under them and snap back to reality – over and over again. While this method has merit if used sparingly, and could even have made for buoyant comedic relief, it becomes the main narrative to push the plot forward. This leads to a sense of distrust for the audience, who are unable to follow what, exactly, is going on, let alone be given the chance to really root for Ellie and Jacob.

Ultimately, even without this chaotic storytelling approach, there’s also the issue that every character is insufferable and unlikeable. While there are moments of compassion for Ellie’s plight, not enough time is spent focusing on a linear timeline to help us properly understand why we should be cheering her on to commit murder. 

In concept, the plot for How to Kill Your Roommates and Get Away with It has potential from a dark comedy standpoint, but it spends so much time attempting to be stylistically avant-garde that it feels more irritating than entertaining. For a movie with an unusually short run time of an hour and fifteen minutes, it feels mercilessly unending and baffling, only to abruptly end in disarray. You’ll leave wishing you could have spent your time with a bad roommate rather than enduring this disheveled story.

2 out of 10