PSYCHO KILLER IS COOL YEAH YEAH YEAH

Parlez vous Français? Don’t worry, you won’t need to have a French meltdown to enjoy this year’s best Satanic Slasher film…

Following the brutal murder of her husband, a Kansas highway patrol officer (Georgina Campbell) sets out on a journey to track down the perpetrator. As the hunt progresses, she comes to realize the man responsible (James Preston Rogers) is a sadistic serial killer, and the depth of his mental depravity and his sinister agenda is more twisted than anyone could have imagined.

The film, which also stars Grace Dove, Logan Miller, and Malcolm McDowell, is written by Andrew Kevin Walker and produced by Roy Lee, Matt Berenson, Andrew Kevin Walker, and Arnon Milchan, with Martin Moszkowicz, Robert Kulzer, Yariv Milchan, Natalie Lehmann, and Kat Landsberg serving as executive producers.

Directed By Gavin Polone

Written By Andrew Kevin Walker

Produced By Roy Lee, Matt Berenson, Andrew Kevin Walker

Cast Georgina Campbell, James Preston Rogers, Grace Dove, Logan Miller, Malcolm McDowell

When movies made three years ago get dumped in the heart of winter, it’s usually not a good sign. And then, when the campaign for said movie focuses on the creators without giving you names, it’s another indication the film will be lackluster. Some movies buck this trend, take SEND HELP and IRON LUNG, for example. But the less than perfect films? Well, we’ve had our fill of these so far this year, with WE BURY THE DEAD and PRIMATE both falling short of what they could have been. And this 2026 tradition continues with PSYCHO KILLER, albeit this film raises the bar some, a result of its coolness factor.

This movie is… cool, it’s Andre 3000 ice-cold cool. The PSYCHO KILLER is cool! Not as cool as Ralph Finnes’ avant-garde lip syncing performance of Iron Maiden in 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE (arguably the year’s best horror entry as of press time), but cool all the same. And this makes me more mad the Talking Heads weren’t present in some manner. Jesus, at least a cover of it by the black metal band utilized as a plot device, and that in and of itself could be an homage to The Ritual, but it’s hard to say if that’s the case – this movie is a literal Easter Basket filled with slasher tropes and imagery, so much it’s almost a parody.

Yes, the most glaring strike against PSYCHO KILLER is the lack of the eponymous Talking Heads song. Imagine Iron Man without Iron Man… And considering the amount of Satanic Panic imagery and plot devices used throughout the runtime, you’d think this song was a no-brainer to include, considering the era it came out. Now, the budget of the film was a manageable $10 million, and I dare say adding that song to the film may have literally doubled the budget. 50 years ago a $9 million budget got you Star Wars. Today it gets you a low-budget horror movie with gag effects. So if the worst thing I can say about PSYCHO KILLER is its lack of a pop song on its soundtrack, then we don’t have anything to worry about. 

Do we?

PSYCHO KILLER isn’t a bad movie, but it isn’t great, and it’s the little things that prevent it from being so. It’s a well-made, near-indy slasher film with good production values and sure to recoup its budget. It may take two weeks to do so (surely I jest), but it will make it back. And when I say it’s the best Satanic Slasher film, I mean it… because that’s the name of the slasher in this film. I know, that’s really original… and my declaration is akin to saying my only child is my favorite child, but here we are. I’m not giving you any motivation to see this, am I? 

None of this matters. My opinion here does not matter. Why? Because the Satanic Slasher is cool. That mask is cool. He sounds cool. He has some cool-ish kills, and even though they don’t bring anything new to the table, people are still going to cosplay as him. 

Andrew Kevin Walker’s script breaks the rules of slasher films, wherein our Satanic Slasher kills indiscriminately on their spree as opposed to enforcing Puritan ideology. They’re still sacrifices, these kills, don’t get me wrong, but they’re to Satan, not God. It’s obvious the intent of his script was an homage to all that has come before, and the choice to focus on the slasher himself was a good one. But outside of looking and sounding cool, it doesn’t add much to the horror sub-genre and ends up coming off like AI written slop, retreading things it already knows instead of branching into new terror-tory. Mostly. There’s a sweet bow-tie on this that attempts to burn a literal hole into the slasher trope, but didn’t we already go here, in a sense, with A CABIN IN THE WOODS?

Once again, none of this matters because he has a cool mask. And he sounds super cool. And he has tattoos. SATANIC TATTOOS, even!

Debut director Gavin Polone tries to be stylish and cool, giving it a NATURAL BORN KILLERS vibe. But he goes too far, failing to make it look and feel like frequent Walker collaborator David Fincher’s SE7EN with the opening credits, the crime scenes, and plot devices. Because it uses real locations, that part just doesn’t work, one of SE7EN’s appeals was its visual aesthetic and the mystery of where it may be set. There’s too much real world in this for it to be a SE7EN, and that’s not a bad thing. The real world parts are the best, from my perspective, and it’s a tie-in to a real life event that is the literal banger for this movie’s climax. 

And that part was cool. Or needed cooling (a joke you’ll get after seeing the film).

The film’s commentary on how Satanism in the USA has evolved since its sexual depravity of the Sixties and Seventies is mostly spot on in representing that subsect, though I was a little disappointed it didn’t touch on modern Satanism’s atheistic beliefs. Instead, it went for the low hanging fruit, but it used Malcom McDowell for it, so who cares. Malcolm McDowell is cool.

And you know what? The Satanic Slasher looks cool, he is cool, he radiates cool. He’s cool like Fonzie before jumping the sharks, even though this movie has its own iteration of a shark jump. I kept expecting George Clooney to show up on screen and say “Everybody, be cool. You… be cool.” Wait, I digress. I already told you all of this, multiple times. Just go see it. PSYCHO KILLER is a serviceable post-Valentine’s Day horror film, and fans of the sub-genre will likely enjoy it, same as they did with HEART-EYES and CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD last year. PSYCHO KILLER doesn’t break any new ground, but it does satisfy the slasher itch until we get IN A VIOLENT NATURE 2 and TERRIFIER 4.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing. Thank you for understanding.