Jonny Numb

The banner-ad push for Gavin Polone’s Psycho Killer – coupled with the cast-iron pulp credentials of screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven; Brainscan; Sleepy Hollow) – seemingly alluded to its placement in theaters across the country, quality of the finished product be damned.

Did I mention it opened the weekend of my birthday?

As a lifelong horror fan, I’ve made my share of trips to the multiplex only to leave with empty hands and an emptier head. But the timing seemed opportune – I had a wide-open schedule on Saturday the 21^st, and figured I could incorporate this bit of R-rated escapism into my plans.

However, when release day came around, the reality of Psycho Killer portended something ominous – the closest theater playing it was nearly 35 miles away (the Regal Manor in Lancaster, PA).

That said, I’ve pumped more than my share of exhaust into the atmosphere by chugging my vehicle across the miles in the name of seeing movies on the big screen. Maybe most notable was the time I drove 90 minutes to the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville so I could watch Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor all by myself. (It was worth it.)

So I figured – with a flexible Saturday at my disposal – 35 miles wasn’t that great of a distance. And besides, I like long solo drives where I can listen to music loud along the way. That Saturday’s soundtrack: Celldweller.

Still – as I wound my way through Lancaster on the way to my destination, I couldn’t help but wonder: how did Psycho Killer not land in at least one theater in or around Harrisburg? Sheesh, last year I caught the justifiably dumped Locked at a nearby AMC.

But I was determined, and as I turned into the Manor Shopping Center – passing by mountains of plowed snow slowly melting in the sunny, 40-degree heat – I found a space with relative ease, again a bit puzzled by the overall lack of interest and activity at the cinema at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon.

Maybe the movie options just really suck right now?

The labyrinthine corridors leading to the theaters were quiet and unoccupied, and when I entered Theater 15, my only other companions were two guys perched up high in the anonymous shadows of the back row. I sat down in the second row, close to the screen.

“You know that’s close to the screen?” the cashier had asked.

“I know. That’s what I want,” I replied.

Even in cases of a small crowd, I like to allow for the possibility of people getting rowdy or obnoxious. I find these behavioral aberrations more tolerable – and far less distracting – with my back to the perpetrators.

****

How on-board you are with the blunt-force-trauma of the title will likely determine your overall perception of Psycho Killer. The words lay bare everything you could possibly want to know – it will be gory, nasty, and depraved; it will cling to horror and thriller tropes for dear life; yet…

Yet…there’s a burbling catharsis to the film that successfully swept me into a low-expectation B-movie world for 90 mostly efficient minutes.

We start with a knowing riff on the jagged, multimedia credits sequence of Seven, albeit in a decidedly less artistic vein. Satanic symbols flash in and out of a red-saturated background, and immediately the content feels less current and more like something out of the heavy-metal panic of the Reagan era.

But Psycho Killer is nothing if not an anachronism^ – a firm member of that mid-‘90s era of Seven rip-offs that clogged theaters and provided bottomless inspiration for low-budget, direct-to-video efforts – that got lost in the shuffle and is somehow making its bow in the Year of Our Lord, 2026.

(Something very ouroboros-meta about this, considering Walker’s imprint in the realm of seedy horror-thrillers.)

The vehicles are current, as are the computer setups.

The Internet is present and accounted for – but maybe looks a bit on the older side?

The methods of the killer’s (James Preston Rogers) research are purely analog (breaking into a library(!); networking via the newspaper classifieds(!).

I guess this allows a bit of room for suspension of disbelief, considering the killer’s towering stature and wavy, death-metal hair makes him look as subtle and inconspicuous as Michael Myers in Halloween II (Rob Zombie version).

But maybe there’s something to that, as Polone stages a Rockwellian scene of the killer clomping through a suburb in broad daylight, past dogwalkers and kids on bikes, all oblivious to the murderer in their midst.

In the post-Covid era, we’ve grown distant to the point where, if something doesn’t directly impact our personal “bubble” of friends, family, and overall day-to-day functionality, it may as well not exist. As if to say: we’ve all got bigger problems to deal with, bigger even than the scary-looking giant clomping to his stolen car.

Georgina Campbell (Barbarian) acquits herself well as a cop who loses her husband (also a cop) to the killer during a traffic stop in the film’s Kansas-set opening. Part of me just has a thing for traffic stops on desolate stretches of road as a sign of ominous doings ahead (see also: Fargo and Surveillance).

Being a film where the villain is a priest-skewerin’, church-massacrin’ Satanist, walls are bloodied with pentagrams and 666’s. It’s telling, though, that when the killer gets in with some devil groupies and their LaVey/Crowleyish leader (Malcolm McDowell, making a meal of his ham), he’s perceptive enough to discern the True Believers from pretenders to the Dark Lord’s throne.

I respect Polone’s decision to keep the killer’s face obscured throughout (whether by a retro-fit rubber gasmask; his long, flowing locks; or a pair of sunglasses), relying on Rogers’ sheer hulking physicality – and some odd vocal distortion – to convey all the viewer needs to know.

In some ways, we’re in pseudo-Zodiac territory, with the killer’s cross-country trek serving as a platter of brutally pulped human sacrifices to Satan on the way to a rendezvous in Hell. There’s a massacre late in the film that raised my eyebrows not only with its over-the-top-violence, but the questionable music-video style in which it’s executed.

The timeline of Psycho Killer falls apart if you give it a moment’s consideration, with details of escapes and identities missing as many details as any of the victims. Hard to tell whether these lapses were present in Walker’s script, if they were vetoed during production, or if they will live on as deleted scenes on the Blu-ray/4K release.

Those expecting Seven levels of nuance will be sorely disappointed, but the surprising endgame for the killer, which carries genuinely apocalyptic implications, redeems some of the earlier missteps.

****

But there are so many questions…

Campbell drives cross-country and has copies of death-metal records at her disposal to flash at the nonplussed local law enforcement!

Why does the façade of a pharmacy make it look like a windowless strip club (e.g., Club RX…has your prescription for PLEASURE)?

Why is the killer so addicted to knocking off drugstores and vacuuming up prescription meds?

Strategic camera angles notwithstanding, how can a 6-foot-plus, 300-plus-pound guy curl up in the backseat of a car without being noticed (I know Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning did the same thing, but that movie sucked ass)? Seriously – someone please explain this to me.

Why does the hotel clerk tell Campbell there were no single-person check-ins, only to say almost immediately after, wait, there’s one!

What is the significance of that ending? Am I missing some symbolism? Or is it a setup for a sequel that’s unlikely to materialize? Perhaps all of that…and more?

Still…I like the obligatory, sterilely-shot scene with Campbell and a mandated therapist, which underlines her refusal to accept inaction and “nothing-you-could’ve-done” platitudes. She’s a likable and driven character.

In the end, one does not pay money and go willingly into a theater showing a film titled Psycho Killer with expectations of superlative art. More than anything, I was looking for some sort of soul-evacuating, mind-pummeling catharsis to engage my lizard brain for 90 minutes and help me forget the rough road 2026 has laid out thus far.

Like Borderlands…or the Flatliners remake…or Morgan, this acknowledges its B-movie nature and leans into it with unabashed grit and gristle. It is neither smug toward nor unapologetic for its narrative – which wobbles more than the suspension bridge in Sorcerer – and is serviceable for the sledgehammer brutality and ambiguity its killer is shrouded in. It also cements Campbell as a capable genre actress to keep an eye on.

Psycho Killer is a satiating experience at the basest possible level, but whether you’ll like yourself after you’ve drunk the blood from Satan’s chalice is another story entirely.

A generous 3 out of 5 stars

^ = this snippet of trivia from IMDb, if true, explains a lot…