Writer Andrew Kevin Walker has given us a wide variety of movies throughout his career. But he also wrote Seven. Which, rightly or wrongly, creates a certain expectation in people when he decides to write once more about a serial killer. Psycho Killer is also titled to let people know what it is, but it's an otherwise very different beast in comparison to Walker's best screenplay.
Georgina Campbell plays Jane Archer, a cop who starts obsessively tracking the titular killer (James Preston Rogers) after her husband, who was also a cop, becomes his latest victim. The killer seems to be connected to another notorious figure from the past, but nobody is willing to believe the theory that Archer is working on.
The feature directorial debut of Gavin Polone, Psycho Killer is moderately fun and entertaining, if you go into it knowing that it's absolutely preposterous. It's a comic book version of a rampaging serial killer, and some of the poor continuity in early scenes should clarify that Polone and Walker are more interested in being bloody and amusing than gritty and serious. This psycho killer is the ROTLD Suicide of psycho killers, and very quick to ensure that people know how committed he is. "You think this is a fucking costume? This is a way of life."
Campbell is very good in her lead role, arguably much better than the movie deserves. She's the one person allowed to have some emotion, but she's also believably capable and determined while keeping her prey in sight. Rogers brings an impressive physicality to his role, at times aligning him with unstoppable horror movie icons like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. Malcolm McDowell is a lot of fun as the kind of Satanist really just interested in something that affords him the opportunity to enjoy some drug-fuelled hedonism, Logan Miller is a much more devoted acolyte, and many others appear onscreen just long enough to be added to the impressive bodycount being racked up by the killer.
Perhaps it helped that I finally got around to seeing this after hearing a wide variety of views on it already, or perhaps I was just much more willing to suspend my disbelief, but I was happy enough to go along with this all the way up to a final sequence that was as audacious and fun as anything else in the movie. I can imagine many rolling their eyes at it, but I actually enjoyed the reveal of the killer's grand plan.
Would I recommend this to others? Not really. I wouldn't dismiss it as unwatchable trash either though. It IS trashy, in a good way, but it's also made with at least a semblance of wit and intelligence running through it. That may ultimately be outweighed by the sillier elements, but at least it tries to do something a bit different with a handful of familiar tropes.
6/10
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