Georgina Campbell has been earning her stripes as a bona fide scream queen, having starred in 2022’s “Barbarian”, 2023’s underrated “Bird Box Barcelona”, 2024’s “The Watchers”, 2025’s “Influencers”, and the fun genre-bender “Cold Storage” from earlier this month. Now she dives right back into the horror genre with “Psycho Killer”, a movie with all the potential to be one of the darkest and more twisted chillers this year (just check out its killer trailer for proof).

Unfortunately, “Psycho Killer” falls well short of its potential due to its scattershot storytelling, some mind-boggling choices, and an ending that feels yanked from another movie entirely. Its especially surprising considering it’s written by Andrew Kevin Walker who penned two David Fincher gems, 1995’s “Seven” and 2023’s “The Killer”. But despite beginning with so much promise, “Psycho Killer” struggles to create anything cohesive out of its big ideas and noteworthy inspirations.

Director Gavin Polone wastes no time getting things started. Campbell plays Jane Archer, a Kansas State Trooper who witnesses her husband and fellow officer Mike (Stephen Adekolu) fatally shot during a traffic stop. The killer gets away and is later identified as a wanted serial killer who has committed a string of interstate homicides spanning six states. Dubbed the “Satanic Slasher”, his M.O. includes leaving behind various satanic symbols at the crime scenes, scrawled in his victim’s blood.

Determined to end the Slasher’s spree, Jane uses her two-week provisional leave to track down her husband’s killer, following his trail of bodies while attempting to head him off before he strikes again. She makes a number of alarming discoveries along the way which enables her to build a possible profile. Yet the Slasher remains one step ahead of her, continuing his random killing spree with an ultimately goal that no one sees coming.

So far so good. It’s a sturdy setup that could go in any number of interesting directions. Instead it turns into a base level cat-and-mouse story with Jane tracking the killer across the Midwest like a super sleuth while the incompetent local authorities sit around twiddling their thumbs. With the brief exception of one lone FBI agent (Grace Dove), Jane is left on her own, jumping from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and getting more done than the local cops and the feds combined.

Meanwhile the hulking Slasher (played by former wrestler James Preston Rogers) goes about his bloody business, somehow avoiding suspicion despite sticking out like a sore thumb. He’s an obvious presence who is built like a Mack truck and who talks like he’s voicing some galactic supervillain in a Marvel movie. He’s undeniably menacing especially when he slips on his creepy radiation mask. But how on earth does he stay at large?

Things really turn preposterous in the second half. And it doesn’t get any goofier than when the Slasher visits a gated mansion owned by a Satanic cult leader named Pendleton (Malcolm McDowell). Pendleton and his five young coke-snorting followers briefly (and unintentionally) yank the movie in an utterly absurd direction. Shortly after that, the movie takes another bizarre turn with a final act that feels miles removed from everything that came before it.

Somewhere inside of “Psycho Killer” lives a good idea waiting to be realized. Campbell gives another strong lead performance that’s begging for better material. And Polone doesn’t shortchange us on the blood and gore. But those things aren’t enough to overcome the confounding lack of cohesion. And the story only unravels more as it progresses. It’s a case of a movie that doesn’t lack vision. It just lacks the know-how needed to translate it onto the screen.

VERDICT – 2 STARS