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.