Despite being around since 2019 and offering some decent lines in analogue watches, with the automatic Seaplane, quartz Wayfinder, and solar Vice ranges all looking to be very capable and well-designed timepieces, Illinois-based watchmakers Farr + Swit seem to be best known for their quirky, ultra-affordable digital pieces at the moment.
Their Retro Digital Mixtape range evoked memories of recording all your favourite songs onto a C90 cassette tape, with its silly-but-fun styling. With those selling very nicely, it would have been easy to just keep doing that in an ever-expanding range of colour choices (say no to ‘colour way’).
But the ’80s weren’t all about hair metal, hard rock and new wave. It was also the greatest decade for movies. So many franchises (yuck, we hate that word) got their start in the ’80s, and they were all at their best then. And while it was the decade of buddy cop movies, kick-ass fight flicks, one-man army action films and the last time that comedies were actually funny, it was also the golden age of horror.
Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, Evil Dead. The list goes on. And while the bubble-gum pop aesthetic of the Retro Mixtape series was made to get you to slide on your legwarmers and start roller-skating or something, Adam Farrage Hodge (the Farr in Farr + Swit) had murder on his mind when he conceived their next digital watch.
The Kill Count is clearly inspired by ’80s horror films, especially the slasher flicks that we all somehow watched despite being like ten years old at the time. The name is very apropos for this reviewer. As a slightly odd kid, I used to know all the kill counts for the Friday the 13th films and this watch, with its name and whole styling, makes me think of Friday the 13th Part Six: Jason Lives. The makers say it’s more generally inspired by all slasher films. The Fridays for sure, but also things like Halloween. For us, it’s the watch you want to be wearing when you accidentally bring Jason Vorhees back to life in graveyard for no apparent reason.
Much like the Retro Mixtape series, it serves as a breath of fresh air in a market that is just completely dominated by Casio. And look, we love Casio digitals. Who doesn’t? They’re great, they’re affordable and they have a track record of reliability. But we’re also suspicious of people who are like ‘here are my two favourite watches: my Patek Phillipe Poncemaster 3000 and my trusty, beloved F-91W.’ Miss me with that bullshit. That’s like the guy you know whose favourite music is Norwegian Black Metal but they also love Taylor Swift. Stop trying so hard.
This isn’t a Casio, though. The Kill Count takes the size and practicality of an F-91W but dresses it up for Halloween. There’s no confusing this for a Casio at all. It’s very Farr, very Swit and the experience starts right with the unboxing.
The watch comes presented in a box that leans right into the VHS aesthetic. There’s a cardboard sleeve which could easily pass as the front cover of a slasher flick. Slide that off, and you get a plastic case that looks like a VHS tape. It’s great, a real love letter to the genre and to a happier time where a kid could watch a homicidal madman hack up teenagers with a hatchet. It took me far too long to figure out that the case opens from the other side than you’d expect, but get that open and you’re greeted with the watch itself, and it’s actually pretty surprising.
What struck us right away was how small but detailed it all is. This thing is absolutely dinky, but all the practical and design elements are there. The face borrows from the cassette tape styling of the Retro Mixtape series, but obviously now it’s a VHS tape. You get the reels, you get the little warnings to not touch the tape and to put it in the right way – exactly as you got them back when VHS was a popular format. A ‘VHS’ logo, an ‘R’ rating and, of course, the Farr + Swit and Kill Count logos complete the design.
Well, almost. You also get a few splatters of bloody red to complete the horror aesthetic, and it looks great. The red contrasts with the white in the upper third of the face (do digital watches get to call it a dial?) beautifully and it all looks impressively sharp and clean. The design is printed directly onto the hardened mineral glass of the watch. It remains to be seen how well that will stay on there, but initial durability seems good (we’re not going at it with a zombie knife, though).
It’s a great, fun look for sure. It’s definitely a bit silly, in a cool way, but you’re not going to wear this to your wedding (well, not unless your partner is very chill). And from a distance, it just looks like a bright, colourful watch, albeit one that is a bit abstract. It’s actually very striking and a watch that kept us staring at it when we first unboxed it because there are lots of little details to take in.
Unlike the Retro Mixtape series, which was all-plastic, this all sits on a polished stainless steel case. Take away the blood and madness of it all, and the F-91W comparisons would be pretty valid. The dimensions are very close indeed. The Kill Count measures 35mm in diameter (38mm lug to lug) and 11mm thick. Comparatively, the F-91W comes in at practically the same size, albeit thinner at just 8.5mm (but of course, it’s primarily made of plastic).
After handling mostly automatic watches for the last year, this thing feels very light indeed. It comes in at around 60g, despite the metal construction and steel bracelet. That’s still pretty light though, and the Kill Count doesn’t feel all that robust, especially that bracelet, which is certainly very thin both in terms of its thickness (the callipers say 1.8mm, but it’ll be a little thinner because each link has a curve to it) and the lug width, which is just 18mm. We think it’ll probably handle regular wear just fine, but we won’t be signing up to do MMA classes in it. It’s also not got quick-release levers on there, which is a shame as that will make changing to a strap more of a hassle if you choose to do it. That said, the bracelet really suits the look.
The only issue we had was with the slide clasp. While it does allow for a perfect fit, we really struggled to set it once we’d lined it up. We had the same issue with the mesh bracelet that we reviewed a few weeks ago, so this isn’t unheard of, but for a good fifteen minutes, we were trying to snap the mechanism back in place. Once done, though, opening and closing the clasp is absolutely fine. It was a one-time problem. We just have to make sure we don’t ever put on or lose any weight now because going through that faff again isn’t something we’re looking to do twice.
The caseback has a cushioned shape and some basic branding. There’s another nod to the VHS heritage with the immortal phrase ‘BE KIND PLEASE REWIND’ and, oddly, a reference to 3ATM water resistance where the website, and Adam himself, confirms it’s actually 5ATM, or fifty metres in plain speak. Who knows, maybe that error will make these more collectable in the future? And that’s ultimately twenty metres more than the F-91W too. If we’re being very picky, the engraving isn’t all that sharp or clear, but we’re truly not bothered about that.
In terms of the functionality of the watch, the Kill Count offers up a traditional three-button layout, which drives the operation of the digital module. It isn’t identified but is presumably just a cheap, generic one. It all works nicely, though. The top-left button activates the LED backlight, which is actually surprisingly effective. We keep comparing everything to the Casio, and this is another area where the Kill Count shines, literally. Instead of a dim, side-mounted diode trying to light up the display from an angle, the Kill Count’s backlight lights up everything. Presumably some sort of electroluminescent affair, this bathes the whole display in a radioactive green, inverting the LCD digits while shining through some of that on-glass printing. It feels personal to me too, as it reminds me of the decaying aliens in the trunk of the car in Repo Man, my favourite ever film and a true VHS classic.
The bottom-left button cycles you through the watch’s modes: normal display, alarm setting, stopwatch and time setting, where that top-left illumination button also cycles you through the choice of seconds, hours, minutes, day and date. Each press gives a little beep to let you know the watch has received your command. It’s all nicely responsive though, so you’ll be in no doubt that your inputs are working as intended.
The final button, placed bottom-right, primarily switches between a twelve and twenty-four hour display and also operates the stopwatch and toggles through some of the alarm settings. If you’ve used a digital watch in the last forty years, this will all be as you remembered.
You can expect around two years of battery life, admittedly a lot less than the Casio’s seven, but replacing the battery shouldn’t be too tricky. You’ll just need a small cross-head screwdriver and a standard watch battery like an SR920SW or any other compatible cell battery. Chuck in the replacement and your watch will come back to life just like Michael Myers and, thankfully, it will be a lot more enjoyable than that last Halloween trilogy.
It’s been an interesting week here at Watch Country HQ. This watch arrived here, in the UK, after a couple of weeks (we ordered it on Christmas Day, so that would have delayed things a little) followed by the Revelot Hexmariner V3 and then another digital watch, the Ghost by 85 Watches. That’s meant a lot of rotating the collection, a lot of filming for our potential first steps into YouTube and a lot of wrist-rolling for social media. But writing this review, right here and now, this watch is a real gem.
We unboxed it five days ago, and now that the VHS-style case is packed away with all the other watch packaging, all we’re left with is this small-but-joyous digital watch. It’s detailed, but it’s clean. The print is so sharp, the colours contrast brilliantly and, as a watch, it just works. It speaks to us as forever-members of the ’80s Movie Club, and it’s so much more interesting than most of the vintage-style Casio digitals out there, although probably not as versatile. We absolutely love it. The shape, the look. It’s just so on point for what the watch is trying to do. And it’s the F-91W for people like us. Children of the ’80s, traumatised far too young by our first viewing of The Evil Dead and now trying to hold it together in an office with people who’d be the first ones to fall over and run into dead-ends like idiots when being chased by Jason Vorhees.
The ‘Ten Watch Box’ Verdict: But will the Kill Count be able to earn a place in our main watch box? Our feeble attempts to slim down from the ten-watch box to a six were a shambles. It’s just not doable, and right now the ten-watch collection is looking tasty. That said, it’s a tiny bit diver-heavy and so having a quirky digital watch like this serves a couple of functions. It’s just a perfect pick up and go watch, and we’re falling out of love with chronographs (they just look a bit dead when there isn’t a proper seconds hand), so this will be great in places where we need a stopwatch. Also, it breaks up the collection, adding a bit of fun and colour to the set. It’ll definitely be in the ten watch box for a while.
JUST THE FACTS
Availability/Options: So far, Farr + Swit haven’t really limited their supply of watches and so you should presumably be able to order these directly without any fuss. The watch doesn’t come in any other colours, finishes or with any different types of straps or bracelets. They’re more likely to keep this as standard and then move onto their next VHS watch model which we hear will be more of a ’90s style effort.
Brand: Farr + Swit
Model: Kill Count
Style: Retro digital
Case Size: 35mm
Movement: Digital
Material: Stainless Steel
Band Width: 18mm
Band Type: Bracelet
Price Paid: To US buyers these are $69.99. We paid £59.26 in UK, which included postage.