It’s been a long and winding to get Psycho Killer to the big screen. The film is the brainchild of screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, who first published a draft of the screenplay in the mid-2000s, and from there the project juggled assorted directors (including Fred Durst) and producers (Eli Roth) before landing with Gavin Polone, who is predominantly a film and television producer now making his directorial debut. Walker’s name lends some bona fides to the project, as the man was responsible for the screenplay behind Se7en, arguably the most acclaimed serial killer picture this side of The Silence of the Lambs. Since then, Walker’s work has been largely focused on the violent and abyssal depths into which humanity can plunge, with notable films such as 8MM, Sleepy Hollow, and most recently David Fincher’s The Killer in 2023, which also happens to be the same year Psycho Killer was shot. It’s now 2026, and while the film is finally seeing the light of day, perhaps it should have remained in the dark. Psycho Killer is an absolute dud, trudging along for 90 lugubrious minutes while aping from far superior projects, and exhibiting absolutely none of the strengths present in Walker’s previous work.
To be fair, the film does begin on a promising note. We’re immediately introduced to the eponymous psycho killer in question, a shadowy figure known in headlines as The Satanic Slasher (James Preston Rogers). With his hulking frame, assortment of weaponry, and face perpetually covered by either stringy black hair or a latex gas mask, The Satanic Slasher is a pill-popping maniac whose body count has climbed to nearly four dozen people, all in the name of hailing Satan (as a calling card, he tends to leave behind a pentagram written in his victim’s blood). While trekking across America in a stolen Dodge Charger, The Satanic Slasher is pulled over in Kansas by State Trooper Michael (Stephen Adekolu). While running the car’s plates, Jane Archer (Georgina Campbell, Barbarian), Michael’s wife and fellow trooper, arrives just in time to see her husband get gunned down by The Satanic Slasher, who then tears off into the distance to leave Jane with her dying partner. Unwilling to simply accept what has happened, Jane begins her own quest to track the maniac down, while said maniac collects more victims, hoping to fulfill his mission to open the Gates of Hell and unleash Satan upon the world.
The Satanic Slasher’s deadly roadside encounter offers a memorable opening salvo, but it also marks the first and last gasp of any tension that Psycho Killer has to offer. From this point on, half of our time is devoted to The Satanic Slasher’s murderous crusade, which involves him putting out cryptic ads in newspapers, drinking the blood of a freshly slain priest, and making an extended pit stop at the mansion of Mr. Pendleton (Malcolm McDowell), a Satanist leader who enjoys hosting orgies and indulging meals of Chinese take-out. The Satanic Slasher’s plotline is ostensibly balanced with Jane’s story, as she eschews traditional therapy in order to seek out guidance from the FBI, eventually doing her own legwork to track down the The Satanic Slasher’s trail, learning all about where he’s been and where he’s going. Walker’s screenplay theoretically offers little in the way of innovation, alternating between rote scenes of investigation with another bloody incident precipitated by the The Satanic Slasher. And every step of the way, Polone fails in execution, leaning heavily on computer-generated blood splatter to highlight the brutality of The Satanic Slasher’s crimes, even delivering one set piece that could be endlessly mocked for its egregious use of speed-ramping while detailing the slaughter of a room full of people. Performances don’t offer much to hold onto either; Campbell arguably fares the best, but there’s little here that’s challenging in any productive ways, as the performer is left to fulfill her lines and beats while clearly lacking much inspiration to elevate the material. Rogers, meanwhile, cuts an imposing figure in the frame, but he’s arguably less of a Shape than Michael Myers, and the decision to audibly pitch down his voice in order to make it sound more menacing is more laughable than chilling. And McDowell, for his part, might be all over the marketing, but his role is almost too brief to even mention, relying heavily on his natural gravitas to make an impact rather than any necessary function for this character’s presence.
When Psycho Killer was initially released, it debuted with a 0% on an increasingly forgiving Rotten Tomatoes, the rarefied mark of a genuine disaster. As all moviegoers know, bad movies — broadly speaking — fall into one of two camps: the first being the favored “so bad, it’s good” territory, where ineptitude leads the way and a film is able to distinguish itself for just how wrong — often enthrallingly so — everything is, offering a measure of undeniable fun as we witness the project go up in smoke; the second camp is the less desirable of the two, usually reflecting a toxic marriage of incompetence and tedium, dismal quality matched only by a dearth of compelling incident. Lest anyone be in doubt, Psycho Killer falls squarely and snugly into the latter camp, which is outright astounding for a film whose climax inexplicably takes place at a nuclear power plant. Much of this falls at the feet of Walker’s screenplay, which is shockingly lacking in creative juice, while a good deal of the leftover disappointment can be attributed to Polone’s utterly atmosphere-free direction. Frank Capra was famously quoted as saying “There are no rules in filmmaking, only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness.” Psycho Killer has most definitely sinned, and any reasonable assessment will damn the film straight to Hell for its egregious transgressions.
DIRECTOR: Gavin Polone; CAST: Georgina Campbell, James Preston Rogers, Logan Miller, Malcolm McDowell; DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Studios; IN THEATERS: February 20; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 31 min.
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