Psycho Killer (2026) Review: Andrew Kevin Walker’s Serial Killer Thriller Misfires

⭐ 2 out of 5 stars

Psycho Killer

Directed by Gavin Polone

Written by Andrew Kevin Walker

Starring Georgina Campbell, James Preston Rogers, Malcolm McDowell

Released February 20th, 2026

Andrew Kevin Walker’s Complicated Hollywood Legacy

Few modern screenwriters have had a stranger career trajectory than Andrew Kevin Walker. After exploding onto the scene with Se7en, Walker became one of the most sought-after writers in Hollywood almost overnight. Studios lined up. Projects were announced. And then—many of them quietly disappeared.

His scripts for 8MM and Sleepy Hollow both endured heavy development reshaping. Director Joel Schumacher reportedly toned down Walker’s original, darker conception of 8MM, shifting it from a brutal meditation on snuff film culture into a more conventional underground thriller. Sleepy Hollow, meanwhile, was molded to fit Tim Burton’s gothic sensibilities and Johnny Depp’s eccentric performance style.

Walker’s next major studio effort, The Wolfman starring Benicio del Toro, underperformed relative to its massive budget. It wasn’t until his reunion with David Fincher on The Killer that critics once again took serious notice.

Which makes Psycho Killer all the more puzzling.

Walker reportedly began developing the script in 2009, and it drifted through development limbo for years. At one point, Fred Durst was attached to direct before producer Gavin Polone—known for films like Zombieland and A Dog’s Purpose—stepped behind the camera himself.

The result feels exactly like a script that spent too long in development and never fully evolved.

A Revenge Thriller That Never Ignites

Georgina Campbell plays Jane Archer, a Kansas State Highway Patrol officer whose husband is murdered during a traffic stop by a notorious serial killer known as “The Satanic Killer.” The crime unfolds in front of her eyes, launching Jane into a cross-country pursuit driven by grief and obsession.

The killer is described as one of the most prolific and elusive murderers in American history—so elusive that even the FBI has failed to track him. Yet Jane, with little more than instinct and determination, locates him with surprising speed.

That narrative shortcut sets the tone. Obstacles appear and dissolve at the convenience of the screenplay. Tension builds and then deflates. What should be a grim, propulsive serial killer thriller instead plays like a first draft outline stretched to feature length.

The film eventually lands in Maryland, where the killer connects with a billionaire grocery magnate leading a hedonistic satanic circle. The group’s role? Providing internet access to a man who has, until now, avoided digital footprints. Why? To gather information necessary to open a literal portal to hell.

Georgina Campbell Deserves Better

If the film remains even remotely watchable, it is because Georgina Campbell commits to the material. Her Jane Archer is emotionally grounded, sympathetic, and sincere—even when the screenplay grants her near-psychic investigative abilities that undermine credibility.

Campbell works hard to anchor the movie in grief and human motivation. But the script repeatedly sabotages her performance by flattening law enforcement into incompetence simply to elevate her intuition. When your protagonist succeeds because everyone else is inexplicably inept, the drama evaporates.

Malcolm McDowell could not be more bored. Playing a hedonistic satanist who is also a billionaire grocery store magnate, McDowell appears to see his character description as doing most of the work in creating his character.

Bloodless Horror, Empty Thrills

For a film titled Psycho Killer, the movie is oddly restrained. The violence is largely bloodless, with unconvincing CGI effects that neither shock nor disturb. It exists in a strange middle ground—too tame to be transgressive, too underwritten to be suspenseful.

It’s not incompetent. That may be the problem.

Bad movies sometimes achieve a kind of perverse entertainment value. Psycho Killer avoids embarrassment, but it also avoids risk. The film feels less like a finished thriller and more like sitting through a lukewarm Hollywood pitch meeting. The premise suggests something dark and provocative. The execution is safe, cautious, and dramatically inert.

Final Verdict: A Thriller Without Teeth

Psycho Killer had the pedigree to matter. Andrew Kevin Walker has written one of the defining serial killer films of the modern era. Instead, this entry feels underdeveloped—like a promising idea that never moved beyond the early draft stage.

Plot holes are glossed over. Logical leaps are ignored. Supernatural elements are introduced without thematic weight. And what remains is a thriller that struggles to justify how it moves from one scene to the next.

There is talent here. There is even a kernel of a compelling revenge narrative. But in its current form, Psycho Killer is a bland, empty exercise in genre mechanics.

For fans of serial killer thrillers hoping for another Se7en, this isn’t it.

Tags

Psycho Killer 2026, Andrew Kevin Walker, Gavin Polone, Georgina Campbell, Serial Killer Movies 2026, Horror Thriller Review, Malcolm McDowell, New Thriller Movies, Psychological Horror, Movie Reviews 2026