A mid-film scene that sees Malcolm McDowell‘s Satanist benefactor pontificate about his religious and financial power to an extremely disinterested guest sums up the viewing experience of Psycho Killer. Se7en scribe Andrew Kevin Walker teaming with 8mm producer Gavin Polone, making his directorial feature debut here, for a Satanic serial killer thriller suggests disturbing horror ahead. Instead of intensity and grit, though, Psycho Killer barrels through illogical and inconsequential plotting to the point of inducing apathy.
Georgina Campbell once again plays a horror lead that’ll test your suspension of disbelief, making questionable decisions likely to result in pain. While that worked in service of Barbarian‘s thematic point, Psycho Killer offers nothing to explain why Kansas State Trooper Jane Archer resolves to hunt and kill her husband’s murderer, the hulking menace known as the Satanic Slasher (James Preston Rogers), mere days after burying him. Or why she persists when she quickly discovers she’s pregnant.
The questionable choices continue along with her dogged pursuit of an elusive psychopath, one that seems completely unstoppable without Jane on his case. Her persistence when all other law enforcement agencies blow her off leads her to uncover the Satanic Slasher’s ultimate lethal agenda.
Georgina Campbell as Jane Archer in 20th Century Studios’ PSYCHO KILLER. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Psycho Killer isn’t much of a cat-and-mouse game, despite being structured as one. Polone gives equal attention to both Jane and the Satanic Slasher, cutting back and forth between them to track their cross-country pursuits while never lingering long enough to inject any depth or, more importantly, tension. As such, it plays like haphazard snapshots of a larger journey that never coalesces into anything of substance. Details are tossed out without any clear purpose or care, like Jane’s pregnancy, amounting to not much more than a superfluous detail to forget.
In one scene, the killer takes a brief respite from his scheming to slurp up the blood of a priest, a moment that sounds more exciting than it is thanks to its nonchalant randomness. It’s one moment of many that feel designed solely to reinforce how menacing the Satanic Slasher is, though Rogers’ hulking presence manages just fine on his own. Polone’s overexposure of his villain winds up one of the film’s more frustrating aspects. Revealing too much of your boogeyman has a desensitizing effect, but in Psycho Killer‘s case, it also exposes clumsy character and plot contradictions that confound.
Malcolm McDowell as Mr. Pendleton in 20th Century Studios’ PSYCHO KILLER. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Very few aspects of Polone’s debut don’t frustrate. Campbell and Rogers bring enough screen presence to engage, despite being saddled with paper-thin characters prone to making baffling choices. Logan Miller (Escape Room) injects warmth and a sense of humor in his brief supporting role, teasing a much stronger and more entertaining film had Polone not taken the material so stone-cold serious. The production design also does tremendous heavy lifting in creating ’80s Satanic Panic atmospherics, complete with vibrant neon red lighting. It’s a movie that looks competently made for the most part, sans an emphasis on CG blood and an excessive use of rough ADR.
A series of barebones scenes strung together without much thought does not a feature make. At least not a good one. Psycho Killer never plausibly builds upon its grieving cop versus Satanic serial killer premise, ensuring the journey remains as superficial as it is dull, right through to its baffling conclusion. There are fleeting glimpses of personality that tease an entertaining horror movie buried somewhere deep within this flat, superficial, and incoherent rough draft. Instead it’s just a vapid, generic form of hell.
Psycho Killer is now showing in theaters.
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