Studio:   20th Century Studios
Director: Gavin Polone
Writer:   Andrew Kevin Walker
Producer: Roy Lee, Matt Berenson, Andrew Kevin Walker, Arnon Milchan
Stars:    Georgina Campbell, James Preston Rogers, Grace Dove, Logan Miller, Malcolm McDowell

Review Score:

Summary:

After witnessing her husband’s murder, a state trooper becomes obsessed with tracking down a Satanic serial killer.

Synopsis:

Officer Mike Archer of the Kansas State Police pulls over a driver along a remote road in Colby, Kansas. Unbeknownst to Mike, the driver turns out to be the prolific interstate serial killer known as “The Satanic Slasher,” who is later revealed to be Richard Joshua Reeves, a notorious mass murderer believed to have been killed while he was in prison.

Mike’s wife and fellow state trooper Jane Archer briefly drives by and exchanges pleasantries with her husband. Suspicious of the situation, Jane remains at the scene and witnesses Reeves shooting Mike dead before speeding away.

Staying at several motels during his cross-country killing spree, Reeves goes on to murder a pharmacist in order to steal prescription painkillers from a drugstore. He also kills a stranded motorist whose fleeing wife inadvertently causes a tanker truck to overturn and explode. Reeves uses his victim’s blood to draw a Satanic symbol at the scene. Reeves next uses a payphone to place a coded classified ad in a newspaper.

Now obsessed with identifying and finding her husband’s killer, Jane conducts a personal investigation that takes her through several states. Jane also learns she is pregnant.

In Illinois, Jane asks to shadow FBI Agent Zolar’s investigation, but Agent Zolar refuses her request. Zolar’s associate Agent Becky Collins, however, sympathizes with Jane’s situation and privately meets with her to share confidential information about the case. The two women conclude that various victims are related to Reeves’s acquisition of painkillers, weapons, and specific encyclopedia volumes.

Becky takes Jane to a motel crime scene that Reeves covered in bloody occult symbols along with the words “open the gates.” Similarities in these clues create a theory that the current crimes are possibly inspired by Richard Joshua Reeves, the teenage devil worshipper who committed a grisly mass murder in a Pennsylvania church yet supposedly died during incarceration.

Becky leaves Jane with a warning that their suspect recently stole dynamite from a construction site. Meanwhile, Reeves kills a priest in a church confessional to drink his blood.

Jane’s research into the occult symbols and phrases links to the heavy metal band Demon Fist. Jane notes that the band has a song titled “The Ballad of Richard Joshua Reeves” and an album cover depicting the church where Reeves conducted his massacre.

Jane’s investigation leads her to a motel where a man registered under the name “Mr. Reeves.” Upon sneaking into the man’s room, Jane notices the coded classified ad in a newspaper on a table. Reeves suddenly attacks Jane. A violent struggle ensues, but it ends with Reeves escaping and Jane injured.

Jane and Reeves separately connect his classified ad with a coded response in another newspaper. Cracking the code reveals a phone number and then an address belonging to Mr. Pendleton, the magus of a Satanic cult.

Mr. Pendleton’s loyal acolyte Marvin welcomes Reeves when he arrives at Pendleton’s estate. As Pendleton hosts a drug-fueled dinner, Reeves explains he searched for like-minded Satanists so he could get help finding a particular person. Marvin uses a private detective to identify the person as Leonard Wilkes, an engineer at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania. Upon receiving the information, Reeves reveals himself as The Satanic Slasher. Acknowledging him as a true believer in Satan, Reeves allows Marvin to leave. However, upon confirming that Pendleton is a fraud exploiting Satanism for sex parties, Reeves slaughters Pendleton and his prostitutes with an ax and sets fire to his mansion.

Having also uncovered Pendleton’s address, Jane arrives outside. Reeves, who previously left Jane a taunting voicemail after identifying her from a newscast about their motel altercation, escapes by crashing into Jane to disable her vehicle.

When police officers arrive, Jane admonishes them for not heeding her tip connecting their suspect to Pendleton’s address. Jane shows them that the clues she collected about the killer, Reeves, and the metal band seem to point toward a culmination at the abandoned Christ Cross Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where Reeves committed his gruesome mass murder.

Jane stakes out the church alongside undercover officers. However, Jane notices additional clues that reveal the actual location of the next event will be the Three Mile Island power plant, where Reeves believes he can open a gateway to Hell by triggering a nuclear meltdown on the anniversary of the Three Mile Island disaster.

Reeves kidnaps Leonard Wilkes and his wife from their home. Reeves then forces Wilkes to escort him into the power plant where he conducts a violent assault to get to the control room.

Jane arrives to join plant security efforts to contain Reeves. Over security cameras, they see Reeves wearing a TNT vest with the intention of killing himself to ignite the catastrophic meltdown. Jane eventually manages to break a window, allowing her to shoot Reeves in time to prevent detonation. In the aftermath, authorities discover The Satanic Slasher was Richard Joshua Reeves all along.

Jane goes on to live with nightmares of Reeves during her pregnancy. Meanwhile, Reeves is imprisoned in a remote facility in Death Valley, California.

Review:

Director David Fincher’s serial killer thriller “Seven,” which was written by Andrew Kevin Walker, remains highly regarded for its creative premise, clever villain, suspenseful atmosphere, and unforgettable ending. Director Gavin Polone’s serial killer thriller “Psycho Killer” has none of those things, quite the opposite in fact, which makes it astonishing that it was written by the same mind behind “Seven.” It’s often hyperbolic to pan something by saying it seems like it was generated by AI, but if any modern movie earns that accusation, it’s “Psycho Killer,” a generic copycat operating on autopilot from its opening titles all the way through to end credits.

The last part of that sentence is meant literally. “Psycho Killer” sandwiches its Plain Jane story of an obsessed police officer tracking down the devil-worshipping madman who murdered her husband between the most cliched bookends imaginable. Opening titles consist of a standard montage made from stylized Satanic symbols interspersed with sensationalized newspaper headlines flashing by too fast to read in their entirety. End credits then come with a noisy metal song that forces fingers to hit the Mute button before pressing Stop.

It isn’t just the text scrolls stuck in a rut of how routine horror movies used to be made in the ‘90s. Everything else about “Psycho Killer” is behind the times too.

Real and fictional serial killers alike could file a class-action lawsuit against “The Satanic Slasher” for plagiarism. Stereotyped from his stringy-haired head down to his boot-clad toes, “Psycho Killer’s” banal baddie doesn’t have an original bone in his brutish body. When he isn’t wearing his weird mask or mirrored aviator glasses, The Satanic Slasher’s face has an uncanny knack for finding every available shadow to keep his features obscured. His supposedly natural voice has a low demonic growl that should only be possible with distortion effects. Actions include sending taunting messages to his pursuer, staying in neon-lit motels, and using a payphone to place a coded classified ad because neither he nor his trapped-in-the-past creator realize print newspapers aren’t really a thing anymore.

Kansas state trooper Jane Archer is the epitome of a singularly focused hero determinedly seeking revenge. Following her husband’s death at the hands of The Satanic Slasher in the film’s first scene, she becomes a perpetually pouting protagonist, searching city after city in montage after montage as she tries to find someone else in law enforcement who can assist her personal detective work to identify and locate the killer.

Of course, none of the FBI agents or local authorities working the case take her or her credible leads seriously. One sympathetic woman lends a small hand, but Jane mostly goes it alone through more montages of online research, security camera clips, and Jane cracking the cipher that conveniently connects the classified ad she serendipitously sees to a separate response that puts her hot on The Satanic Slasher’s sloppy heels. If only she stretched string between notecards and photos on a bulletin board, the circle would be complete.

It’s amazing what Jane uncovers simply from typing words into Google while everyone else stays stumped. In the real world, Jane could have saved time by instead searching Reddit, as there would undoubtedly be a dedicated thread created by true-crime junkies whose armchair sleuthing into The Satanic Slasher would have already collected the same obvious, publicly available details she puts together.

The killer could take some search tips from Jane. An analog aficionado apparently unable or unwilling to use the Internet, for some reason he needs a like-minded coven to help find a particular person integral to his endgame. It doesn’t make much sense why a phony cult leader’s bumbling acolyte would be the best possible avenue for identifying this person, yet the eager-to-please lackey easily does so by merely contacting a private detective offscreen and quickly coming back with a name. How’s that for plot progression?

“Psycho Killer” pulses with a dark vibe that comes naturally from its grisly subject matter and Satanic theming. But the macabre mood is too mild to compensate for the massive mound of commonplace beats like confrontations culminating in narrow escapes, a climax that essentially involves a countdown, and Jane learning she’s pregnant with her dead husband’s child. These things alone qualify “Psycho Killer” for the “seems like it was generated by AI” complaint, yet the movie still has plenty more tropes to drag out of the cobwebbed cellar where those came from.

Review Score: 40