Psycho Killer review: a clumsy mix of slasher and serial-killer tropes

Psycho Killer often feels like an unearthed late-1990s or early-2000s thriller. Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, known for Seven and Sleepy Hollow, and first-time director Gavin Polone lean into dated touches — classified ads, motel guestbooks and a reference that places the story around 2007 — so the film evokes an era when serial-killer procedurals were common multiplex fare.

The movie draws a clear line between procedural serial-killer stories and instinctive slashers, then crosses it. Jane Archer, played by Georgina Campbell, is both an adult and a cop, which pushes the film toward the serial-killer column, but the Satanic Slasher (James Preston Rogers) commits ornate, out-there kills and wears a gas mask that calls back to My Bloody Valentine.

He attacks a miniature orgy with an axe and even drinks a priest’s blood through a crude metal contraption, moments that sit more comfortably in slasher territory than in a realistic detective thriller. Polone stages the slaughter scenes with more care than the quieter human moments.

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