Georgina Campbell Archives

Review: ‘Psycho Killer’ (2026), starring Georgina Campbell, James Preston Rogers, Grace Dove, Logan Miller and Malcolm McDowell

February 20, 2026

by Carla Hay

James Preston Rogers in “Psycho Killer” (Photo by Eric Zachanowich/20th Century Studios)

“Psycho Killer” (2026)

Directed by Gavin Polone

Culture Representation: Taking place in various U.S. states, the horror film “Psycho Killer” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people and one Native American) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A Kansas Highway Patrol officer goes on a cross-country trip to track down the serial killer who murdered her husband, who was also a Kansas Highway Patrol officer.

Culture Audience: “Psycho Killer” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and mindless slasher movies.

Georgina Campbell in “Psycho Killer” (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios)

The moronic slasher flick “Psycho Killer” is a cinematic trash dump of plot holes and huge unanswered questions, in this unimaginative story about a highway patrol officer hunting down the serial killer who murdered her husband. The movie throws in scenes for the sake of showing more brutal murders, but many of these scenes are disjointed and just bring up more questions that the movie never bothers to answer. The ending of the film is extremely lazy, predictable and shoddily staged, thereby ruining any suspense that “Psycho Killer” was trying to create.

Directed by Gavin Polone and written by Andrew Kevin Walker, “Psycho Killer” takes place in various U.S. states. The movie was actually filmed in Canada, in the Manitoba cities of Winnipeg and Brandon. “Psycho Killer” is the feature-film directorial debut of Polone, who is a longtime producer of movies and TV shows, with previous credits that include the “Zombieland” movie franchise and HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

“Psycho Killer” was filmed back in 2023 and is one of those movies whose release seems to have been delayed because the movie distributor knew how terrible the movie is. “Psycho Killer” was also not screened in advance for reviewers—another obvious sign that a movie distributor knows the movie is a stinker. The “Psycho Killler” movie was in development from all the way back in 2007, with Fred Durst and later Eli Roth previously attached to direct the movie back in the 2000s.

“Psycho Killer” does not explicitly state the year in which the story takes place, but the timeline is sometime in the early 2020s, based on the cars and the technology that are seen or mentioned in the movie. However, there are some parts of “Psycho Killer” where it definitely looks like the film was made from a moldy and outdated screenplay. The highway patrol officers in the movie don’t have body cameras or dashboard cameras. There’s also a big subplot in the story involving the killer placing newspaper ads and stealing encyclopedias from a library for information, instead of going on the Internet to place ads and find information. The killer’s lack of Internet use is mentioned by not adequately explained.

“Psycho Killer” screenwriter Walker wrote the 1995 classic thriller “Seven,” directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey. That movie was also about law enforcement trying to capture an elusive serial killer, but “Psycho Killer” has no resemblance to “Seven,” in terms of cinematic quality or the type of serial killer who’s being hunted. Walker’s screenwriter involvement in “Seven” is being used to market “Psycho Killer” to the masses, but don’t be fooled. “Psycho Killer” isn’t just a step down from “Seven.” It’s an abysmal descent into bad horror movie hell.

“Psycho Killer” starts off somewhat promising before it becomes an idiotic mess. The movie’s opening scene begins in Colby, Kansas. Kansas Highway Patrol officer Michael Archer (played by Stephen Adekolu) pulls over a driver on a snowy, deserted highway. The driver, who is the only person in the car, is a tall, muscular man in his 30s. The driver has long, black and stringy hair and has many tattoos. His face is never seen in the movie.

Michael is immediately suspicious because he sees open and empty prescription pill bottles inside the man’s messy car. Michael asks to see the man’s driver’s license and car registration. The man speaks slowly with a deep voice and says he can get the license and registration. His voice sounds like a stereotypical serial killer’s voice, so there’s no mystery that this is the movie’s “psycho killer.”

As Michael is questioning this mysterious driver, his wife Jane Archer (played by Georgina Campbell), who is also a Kansas Highway Patrol officer, drives up in her own highway patrol car. Michael and Jane exchange some affectionate banter before she drives away. However, within seconds, Jane drives back and parks behind Michael’s car, perhaps because her instinct told her to be a backup officer in case Michael needs her.

To Jane’s horror, she sees the seated driver shoot Michael before the driver races off. Jane rushes over to Michael to give him as much medical aid as she can, as she calls for help and waits for an ambulance to arrive. Because the driver never got out of the car when interacting with Michael, Jane was never close enough to the driver to get a good look at him. At the hospital where Michael is taken, Jane gets the devastating news that Michael died from the gunshot wound.

Jane’s unnamed father (played by Nigel Shawn Williams) tries to comfort Jane, but she feels overwhelming guilt about what happened. (Jane’s mother is not seen or mentioned in the movie.) Jane is required to go into therapy, but she is emotionally closed off and bitter in a session with her psychiatrist (played by Eric Blais), who also tells Jane that she shouldn’t blame herself for Michael’s death.

Jane decides to take a two-week provisional leave of absence from her job. Her secret goal is to find the man who killed Michael. “Psycho Killer” reveals from the beginning of the movie that this mysterious criminal is really an elusive serial killer who has the nickname the Satanic Slasher (played by James Preston Rogers) because he has satanic tattoos on his body and leaves satanic messages and drawings at his murder scenes. He often wears a vintage aviator mask when he commits his murders.

In the beginning of the story, he is already the prime suspect in at least 15 murders in California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. And now, the Satanic Slasher is going east across the United States because he is now in Kansas. But he won’t be in Kansas for much longer. The movie also shows him in Illinois and in Maryland. And somehow, Jane is able to know exactly what state he’s in by sheer luck or coincidence. It all looks so fake. And it’s an insult to the intelligence of anyone who has common sense.

Some other things are revealed about the Satanic Slasher during the story, including his real name (Richard Joshua Reeves), which he uses when checking into the seedy motels where he stays during his cross-country murder spree. The reason why he feels comfortable using his real name is because no one is supposed to know he is alive. He faked his own death in 2004, when he was a prisoner on death row.

The Satanic Slasher/Richard Joshua Reeves was in prison for a committing a mass murder (13 people at a church) when he was a teenager, 20 years before this story takes place. “Psycho Killer” shows a short archival TV news report about Richard being shot and killed by a prison guard in 2004, but the movie never explains how he faked his death and how he escaped detection from law enforcement for all these years.

The Satanic Slasher is also addicted to prescription painkillers and psychotropic drugs, which is why he frequently breaks into pharmacies at night to steal medication from the pharmacies. Not surprisingly, one of his murder victims in this story is a pharmacy employee (played by Sydney Sabiston) who is alone in a parking lot at night that just happens to have slasher film red lighting. The killer might have a drug-addled mindset, but he is still lucid enough to hide from law enforcement, even though his physical appearance alone would make him stand out as a suspect.

Jane’s investigation is shown haphazardly, with no real logic on how she’s able to know which state the Satanic Slasher is hiding during his cross-country killing spree. During her road trip, there’s a scene where Jane vomits in her motel room. And when a woman of child-bearing age vomits in a movie, she’s usually intoxicated or pregnant. Janes takes a home pregnancy test and finds out the results.

Jane shows up at the FBI office in Springfield, Illinois, the city where the Satanic Killer has murdered a couple (played by Joshua Banman and Cassandra Ebner) who were traveling motorists on a dark and deserted road. The FBI is investigating. At the this office, Jane introduces herself as a Kansas Highway Patrol officer who thinks that the murderer of this couple is the same man who killed her highway patrol husband on the job.

An arrogant chief FBI agent (played by Josh Strait), whose last name is Zahn, is in charge of the investigation. Jane asks him if she can shadow his investigation for a few days. He bluntly rejects her request and tells her to go home. And it’s not just because he’s being rude or territorial. He also knows that in law enforcement, it’s protocol for a law enforcement investigator to not be involved in the investigation of a loved one’s murder because there could be a conflict-of-interest bias.

The FBI agent has a subordinate agent named Becky Collins (played by Grace Dove), who is also working on the case. Becky is there when her boss coldly dismisses Jane. Becky, who is also treated with condescension by this egotistical boss, feels sympathy for Jane and meets up with Jane later to give her some information that Becky is not allowed to give to people who aren’t involved in the investigation. “Psycho Killer” is mostly a monotonous repeat loop where the Satanic Slasher murders people, Jane and other law enforcement show up too late, and the hunt for this killer continues.

There’s a very disjointed subplot about a Maryland-based satanic and hedonistic cult that becomes a target of the serial killer. The cult is led by a wealthy supermarket mogul, who is only identified as Mr. Pendleton (played by Malcolm McDowell), whose sycophantic assistant Marvin (played by Logan Miller) connects with the Satanic Slasher via newspaper ads with codes. There’s a ritualistic dinner scene with Mr. Pendleton and other cult members where the dialogue is so bad, it’s almost laughable.

The Satanic Slasher also has a master plan that is related to the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown accident that happened in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania, in 1979. This plan is one of many low points in the movie, which drags with repetition and has an unbelievably atrocious showdown. Campbell gives a serviceable performance as the movie’s protagonist, but “Psycho Killer” is not the finest work of any of the cast members. Because so little is revealed about the any of the movie’s main characters, and the story is so nonsensical, “Psycho Killer” is just an empty and soulless “money grab” excuse to show brutal murders that substitute gore for suspense.

20th Century Studios released “Psycho Killer” in U.S. cinemas on February 20, 2026.

Review: ‘Cold Storage’ (2026), starring Georgina Campbell, Joe Keery, Sosie Bacon, Vanessa Redgrave, Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson

February 14, 2026

by Carla Hay

Georgina Campbell and Joe Keery in “Cold Storage” (Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films)

“Cold Storage” (2026)

Directed by Jonny Campbell

Culture Representation: Taking place in Kansas (and briefly in Italy, Australia, and North Carolina), in 2007 and in 2025, the sci-fi horror comedy “Cold Storage” (based on David Koepp’s novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, Asians and indigenous people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A deadly green fungus, which was secretly placed in a storage facility by the U.S. Army, becomes unleashed, leading to several gory deaths, and only a small group of people know how to stop the fungus.

Culture Audience: “Cold Storage” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the movie on which the book is based, and horror comedies where most of the comedic situations are from “gross-out” body horror.

Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville in “Cold Storage” (Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films)

The sci-fi horror comedy “Cold Storage” is a mix of gory and goofy in this story about a deadly green fungus that’s unleashed from a Kansas storage facility. The movie also has wry observations of military corruption and worker exploitation. It’s a fairly straightforward horror comedy where the “splatterfest” that takes place is intended to evoke scares and laughs at the same time.

Directed by Jonny Campbell and written by David Koepp, “Cold Storage” is based on Koepp’s 2019 novel of the same name. The movie starts off in 2007 and then fast-forwards to 2025, when most of the story takes place. Most of the horror action takes place in Atchison, Kansas, but there are also a few scenes taking place in Australia and in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Cold Storage” was actually filmed in Morocco and Italy.

“Cold Storage” begins with a captioned introduction referring to the real-life incident involving the U.S. space station Skylab on July 11, 1979. In this incident Skylab re-entered Earth’s atmosphere earlier than anticipated and “fell out of the sky.” “Most of the debris burned on re-entry,” the caption explains. “Some [of the debris] landed on Earth,” specifically, the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.

In 2007, Dr. Hero Martins (played by Sosie Bacon), an American research microbiologist who works as a consultant for NASA, is relaxing at a cafe in Rome when she gets an emergency phone call patched in to her by NASA. The caller is Enos Namatjira (played by Rob Collins), a resident of Kiwirrkurra, Australia, a rural community located in Western Australia’s Gibson Desert. Enos frantically tells Hero that a tank is there and that something terrible is happening to everyone in Kiwirrkurra. A major windstorm is happening where Enos is, so part of what he says is hard for Hero to understand.

However, 27 hours later, Hero has arrived in Kiwirrkurra with two officials from the U.S. Army: Major Robert Quinn (played by Liam Neeson) and Lieutenant Colonel Trina Romano (played by Lesley Manville), who investigate what turned out to be a mysterious plague that killed everyone in Kiwirrkurra. The “tank” that Enos was talking about was a NASA oxygen tank that fell from space. The tank was believed to have been a remnant of the Skylab disaster.

It’s revealed early on the movie that this oxygen tank, which was sent up with Skylab, had a terrestrial fungus. Enos had taken the tank and opened a Skylab Museum to showcase the tank. When Enos called, he reported an outbreak of unknown origin. Hero, Robert and Trina (all wearing hazmat suits) soon discover dead bodies where everyone looks like they exploded before they died. Many of the bodies are found on a roof, as if they were trying to escape on an elevated platform.

Hero finds the tank and does an X-ray examination. There’s a living green organism in the tank that suddenly lunges in Hero’s direction, even though the tank is closed. Hero finds a small, dime-sized patch of green fungus on a building surface and takes it as a sample. It’s decided that because this is a hazardous disaster area with no survivors nearby, the U.S. Army will have to blow up the area.

Just as Hero, Robert and Trina are about to leave, Hero shows signs of being infected. Her condition quickly escalates to where the green fungus appears all over her body. She becomes irrational and starts to see Robert and Trina as enemies. This review won’t reveal everything that happens, but it’s enough to say that things do not end well for Hero.

Robert and Trina recommend that the U.S. Army store this fungus in a secret storage facility in Atchison, Kansas. It’s later revealed that the fungus was buried in a container in a secret underground laboratory-styled warehouse located 400 feet below the storage facility. Over the next 18 years, the storage facility went through many changes, including the U.S. Army selling the storage facility to a private business, without telling the current owner about the secret underground warehouse with the deadly fungus.

In 2025, the storage facility is now called Atchison Self-Storage, which is owned by a sleazy criminal named Darryl Griffin (played by Gavin Spokes), who uses the facility to store stolen big-screen TVs, which he sells to other thieves for a profit. A conversation in the movie also reveals that Darryl sexually harasses his female employees. “Cold Storage” is mostly about what happens one night during a late shift at Atchison Self-Storage.

There are two Atchison Self-Storage employees who are on duty as security personnel: a motormouth misfit named Teacake (played by Joe Keery) and a sarcastic intellectual named Naomi (played by Georgina Campbell, no relation to “Cold Storage” director Jonny Campbell), who has been recently hired at Atchison Self-Storage. Teacake needs the job because he’s on parole. Teacake later tells Naomi that he spent time in prison after being set up for a theft he didn’t commit. Later in the movie, Teacake tells Naomi what his real name is and how he got the nickname Teacake.

Naomi, who is 24 years old and a veterinary school student, has the job because she needs the money to pay for expenses. She has a 6-year-old daughter named Sarah (played by Vanessa Popkova and Valentina Popkova), with a nitwit named Mike (played by Aaron Heffernan), whose relationship with Sarah goes back to when they were in high school. Whatever love Naomi might have had for Mike is now gone. She clearly despises him and calls him a “hopeless man-child” when she describes Mike to Teacake. It’s unclear if Naomi and Mike are still a couple, but Mike definitely acts possessive of Naomi, because Mike constantly calls Naomi while she’s working and eventually shows up at the storage facility because she won’t return his phone calls.

In the first scene showing Atchison Self-Storage, Darryl tries and fails to convince Teacake to help the thieves who will be arriving later to pick up the stolen TVs. Teacake refuses because he doesn’t want to do anything that could send him back to prison. Darryl is frustrated because he normally doesn’t go to the storage facility at night, in order not to implicate himself in helping the thieves move the TVs out of the facility.

Before Darryl leaves, he orders Teacake to find out the source of a mysterious beeping sound that he’s been hearing in the storage facility. Because Teacake refused to help Darryl with the stolen TV scam, you just know that Darryl will come back at some point to oversee how these TVs will be moved out of the storage facility. Darryl’s fate can easily be predicted in a movie like “Cold Storage,” but it will still give some viewers plenty of satisfaction to see what happens.

Meanwhile, Teacake hears the beeping sound. Naomi doesn’t hear it at first, but then she hears the sound too. Teacake and Naomi find out that the beeping sound is coming from behind a thin drywall, which they decide to tear through. Behind the drywall, they find a map and a ladder leading down to the unknown. Vanessa Redgrave has a small supporting role as an Atchison Self-Storage customer named Mary Rooney, who has the misfortune of being at the storage facility on the night when things turn into chaos.

It’s no mystery in this movie’s plot that the fungus gets loose and wreaks havoc. The rest of “Cold Storage” is about what happens when the fungus (which spreads like ooze) is discovered at this storage facility. Infections occur if anyone comes into unprotected physical contact with the fungus. Humans aren’t the only ones who get infected. A cat and a deer are among the animals that are also shown getting infected.

Sensitive viewers should be warned: The scenes involving the fungus infections and death are very explicit. At some point in the infection process, the infected individual vomits green bile. This isn’t normal-looking vomiting. It’s the type of intense vomit projectile that can be compared to a snow cannon machine in motion. The movie’s visual effects are better than the average low-budget independent horror movie that has visual effects.

The U.S. Army finds out about this outbreak at Atchison Self-Storage. And so, even though Robert (currently living in Raleigh) and Trina are retired, they’re soon on the scene to help. Robert has an old U.S. Army nemesis named Wesley Jerabek (played by Richard Brake), who was the one who decided to sell the storage facility to a private business owner without telling the owner about the deadly fungus stored inside. Wesley is still a high-ranking U.S. Army official, and he wants to suppress any reports or military assistance involving this outbreak. One of his subordinates, using the code name Abigail (played by Ellora Torchia), defies Wesley’s orders when Robert contacts her.

“Cold Storage” doesn’t have much of a plot beyond showing who will survive this outbreak and how they survive. (And it’s very easy to predict who dies and who lives.) The performances are serviceable, with good comedic timing from all the cast members. However, “Cold Storage” is the type of horror movie where the concept outshines the characters. The movie isn’t constantly laugh-out-loud funny. Most viewers will get at least some mild chuckles out of watching it.

As far as the “Cold Storage” characters go, the banter between Teacake and Naomi is the heart of the movie’s dialogue. What starts out as awkward co-worker interaction between Teacake and Noami turns into mutual attraction and respect. Robert and Trina have a sometimes-prickly, sometimes-cuddly rapport with each other that’s also entertaining to watch. “Cold Storage” is a horror movie that puts a lot of emphasis on gross-out splatter scenes, but there’s still enough humanity to make the main characters relatable to a lot of viewers.

Samuel Goldwyn Films released “Cold Storage” in U.S. cinemas on February 13, 2026. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 6, 2026.

Review: ‘The Watchers’ (2024), starring Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Oliver Finnegan and Olwen Fouéré

June 6, 2024

by Carla Hay

Pictured from left to right: Olwen Fouéré, Oliver Finnegan, Dakota Fanning and Georgina Campbell in “The Watchers” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

“The Watchers” (2024)

Directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan

Culture Representation: Taking place in Ireland, the horror film “The Watchers” (based on A.M. Shine’s novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one black/biracial person) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A 28-year-old American artist, who works in a pet store, gets lost in a wooded area and becomes trapped in a mysterious portal with other people being watched by fearsome creatures.

Culture Audience: “The Watchers” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Dakota Fanning, the novel on which the movie is based, and horror movies that have more style than substance.

Georgina Campbell, Dakota Fanning, Oliver Finnegan and Olwen Fouéré in “The Watchers” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

“The Watchers” succeeds in creating a foreboding atmosphere and some creature feature scares. However, this horror movie’s story (about people trapped and being watched in a forest portal) becomes a nonsensical mess with shoddy film editing. The movie repeatedly contradicts itself in ways that are never explained, thereby ruining the story’s credibility and having scenes that turn out to be fairly useless.

Written and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, “The Watchers” is her feature-film directorial debut. The movie is based on A.M. Shine’s 2022 novel “The Watchers.” Ishana Night Shyamalan is the daughter of M. Night Shyamalan, who has written and directed several horror movies that have been hit and miss, in terms of quality. M. Night Shyamalan is also one of the producers of “The Watchers.” Ishana Night Shyamalan was previously a writer and director of some episodes of her father’s Apple TV+ horror series “Servant,” which was on the air from 2019 to 2023.

In “The Watchers,” the main protagonist is a 28-year-old struggling artist named Mina (played by Dakota Fanning), an American living in Galway, Ireland. Mina (a bachelorette who lives alone) has a day job working at a pet store. Early in the movie, a brief glimpse of a sign post shows several missing persons flyers on the sign post. It’s an obvious indication that people have been disappearing with alarming regularity in the Galway area, but the movie’s screenplay is so thinly constructed, no one is seen talking about these disappearances in the movie.

At night, Mina likes to go to pubs and flirt with men, by wearing disguises and making up fake stories about herself. An early scene in the movie shows Mina wearing a black wig, going to a pub, flirting with a young stranger named Collin (played by Shane O’Regan), and lying to him about who she is. Mina pretends that she’s a ballerina named Caroline. This is the most that the movie reveals about what Mina likes to do in her leisure time.

Mina has been tasked with delivering a yellow parrot to a customer. Mina sarcastically tells the parrot, “Try not to die,” which is a sentence that the parrot repeats several times throughout the movie. Mina is driving through a heavily wooded area on her way to deliver this parrot when her SUV suddenly stops working. And because this is a horror movie, her mobile phone can’t get any signals in this remote area. (The woods scenes in “The Watchers” were filmed on location at Ballinastoe Woods in Ireland’s Wicklow County.)

As already shown in the movie’s trailer, Mina gets out to walk and find help. But when she turns around, she sees that her vehicle has suddenly vanished. Feeling stranded and helpless, Mina decides she’s going to name the parrot Darwin, presumably the namesake of Charles Darwin, the scientist credited with the “survival of the fittest” theory of evolution. Mina tells the parrot: “If we’re going to die here, you might as well have a name.”

Faster than you can say “incoherent horror movie,” Mina sees an elderly woman standing at the doorway of a portal. The woman, who later introduces herself as Madeline (played by Olwen Fouéré), shouts to Mina that if Mina wants to live, then Mina has five seconds to run through the door. A terrified Mina runs through the door, which slams shut behind them.

Mina finds out that this door has led to a mysterious house with large glass windows for walls. Madeline introduces her to the other people in the house, which Madeline calls “the coop”: friendly Ciara (played by Georgina Campbell) and rebellious Daniel (played by Oliver Finnegan), who both say that they have been in this house for an undetermined period of time. Madeline has been in the coop the longest.

Madeline explains to Mina that every night, people in the coop are watched by creatures for the creatures’ amusement. The people in the coop are not allowed to see the creatures. When the creatures come out at night, the glass walls and windows turn into mirrors from the inside, so that anyone inside the coop can only see their reflections instead of outside the house.

Madeline then explains that there are other rules besides not being able to look at the creatures. People inside the coop cannot try to escape and cannot leave the house at night. If they leave the house during the day (they have to hunt for their own food), they can’t be in the sunlight, they have to be back in the coop by sunset, and they can’t go near “the burrows,” which are really holes or caves. Anyone who breaks these rules will be killed by the creatures, says Madeline.

The first half of “The Watchers” drags with repetition, as Mina and Daniel break the rules and try to find ways to escape. As already revealed in the trailer for “The Watchers,” Ciara is married, and her husband John (played by Alistair Brammer) is somewhere in the woods. John is seen running frantically through the woods at night during the movie’s opening scene.

“The Watchers” has a lot of character actions that don’t make much sense. Mina doesn’t really ask a lot of questions when she’s trapped with these three strangers. Madeline, who used to be a university professor who taught history, seems to know a lot of the “rules” and is very bossy about them, thereby making it obvious that she knows more than she’s saying. Ciara barely mentions her missing husband John until he apparently comes knocking on the front door.

Mina has a past trauma that is haunting her: Her mother died when Mina was 13 years old. Mina and her identical twin sister Lucy witnessed this death. Mina has been estranged from Lucy ever since. What happened to the sisters’ mother is shown in a flashback, which explains why Lucy refuses Mina’s attempts to reconnect with Lucy. However, this part of Mina’s past is somewhat mishandled in “The Watchers,” considering what happens at the end of the movie. (The origins and secrets of these “watcher” creatures are eventually revealed.)

“The Watchers” has some mild jump scares that slightly improve when the creatures are fully seen, after the movie repeatedly teases what these creatures look like. The movie’s cinematography by Eli Arenson is intentionally dark and murky for most of the film. After a while, all of this drab darkness seems like a smokescreen for a weak story. A professor character named Rory Kilmartin (played by John Lynch) is introduced in a very jumbled and rushed turn of events in the last third of the film, when Mina suddenly becomes a paranormal detective in ways that never look believable.

None of the acting in “The Watchers” is anything special. The movie spends a lot of time with the four residents of the coop, but Ciara and Daniel remain underdeveloped characters. Fanning’s Mina is supposed to be emotionally disconnected, but it results in a very dull performance. “The Watchers” has an effective music score (from Abel Korzeniowski) that helps create some suspenseful tension. However, having the right style in creating a mood cannot make up for the hollow characters and the story’s lack of cohesion in “The Watchers,” which has a very substandard ending.

Warner Bros. Pictures will release “The Watchers” in U.S. cinemas on June 7, 2024.

Review: ‘Barbarian’ (2022), starring Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård and Justin Long

September 7, 2022

by Carla Hay

Georgina Campbell in “Barbarian” (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios)

“Barbarian” (2022)

Directed by Zach Cregger

Culture Representation: Taking place in Detroit and briefly in Los Angeles, the horror film “Barbarian” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Murder and mayhem ensue when a woman, who’s in Detroit for a job interview, finds out that her Airbnb-type rental house has been double-booked with a male guest, who is also staying at the house.

Culture Audience: “Barbarian” will appeal primarily to people interested in watching suspenseful slasher films that mixes formulaic plot developments wth a few surprises.

Justin Long in “Barbarian” (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios)

“Barbarian” falters with uneven pacing and some gaps in logic, but this slasher flick delivers the type of suspenseful mystery, jump scares and interesting characters that a horror movie should. The acting performances are better than the screenplay. If not for the performances and some clever surprises, “Barbarian” would be a very run-of-the-mill horror movie.

Written and directed by Zach Cregger, “Barbarian” is somewhat of a departure for Cregger, who is also known as an actor who does a lot of work in comedy. (He was one of the original cast members of “The Whitest Kids U’ Know,” the comedy sketch series that was on the IFC network from 2007 to 2011, after launching for a short stint on the Fuse network.) Cregger’s feature-film debut as a writer/director was the forgettable 2009 sex comedy “Miss March,” in which he co-starred with Trevor Moore, one of the other cast members of “The Whitest Kids ‘U Know.”

“Barbarian” begins with the arrival of aspiring filmmaker Tess Marshall (played by Georgina Campbell), who has traveled to Detroit, because she has a job interview to be an assistant to a semi-famous documentary filmmaker. Tess is staying at a one-bedroom house (at the address 476 Barbary) that she rented through Airbnb. And because this is a horror movie, she arrives at night when it’s raining outside.

To her surprise, Tess finds out that there’s another guest who’s already at the house, and his rental time is for the same time that she’s been booked. His name is Keith Toshko (played by Bill Skarsgård), who has arrived from Brooklyn, New York. Keith tells Tess that he booked his reservation through Home Away, an online service that’s similar to Airbnb. Keith also says that he’s part of an artist collective called the Lion Tamers Collective, and he’s in Detroit to look for living space for the group.

After Tess and Keith see that they both have confirmations for the same booking, Tess offers to leave, since Keith arrived at the house first. Tess starts to call around to find a hotel room to book, but the first place she calls doesn’t have any vacancies. Keith says that there’s a big convention happening in Detroit, so she probably won’t have much luck finding a hotel room. The movie never says where Tess lives, but it’s far enough were she had to rent a car for this trip.

There are several moments in “Barbarian” when people make less-than-smart decisions—the types of decisions where viewers might say to themselves, “I would never do that.” The first of those moments in “Barbarian” happens when Tess takes Keith’s word for it that she won’t find a hotel room, and she gives up too easily in her search to find a hotel. This is the type of questionable decision that horror movies rely on, in order to put characters in danger.

Tess then offers to sleep in her car for the night, but Keith insists that she stay in the house because the neighborhood is too dangerous for her to be sleeping in her car at night. At this point, even though Keith is friendly and polite, viewers will be wondering if Keith really is a good guy, or if he has sinister intentions for Tess. This question is answered at a certain point in the movie, but “Barbarian” does a very good job of keeping viewers guessing about what’s going to happen.

Tess then makes the fateful decision to spend the night at the house. Keith tells Tess that she can have the bedroom, while he sleeps on the couch. Because Keith is a complete stranger to Tess, as a precaution, Tess uses her phone to secretly take a photo of Keith’s driver’s license when she see his wallet on a table in the bedroom.

There’s tension in the house, but not just because of fear. After a while, there’s sexual tension, because it becomes obvious that Keith is attracted to Tess. And when Tess begins to feel more comfortable around Keith, the attraction becomes mutual. Their first night together in the house has some scares for Tess when she wakes up in the middle of the night to find out that her bedroom door, which she had closed behind her, is open.

The terror in the house doesn’t happen right away. Tess begins to trust Keith enough that she accepts his offer to share the house with him for the rest of their stay in Detroit. When Tess goes outside the house for the first time when it’s daylight, she sees that the house is the only well-kept house on a residential street that looks like a bombed-out war zone. All of the other houses on the street look like condemned, unhabitable buildings.

The street is also eerily quiet, except for a harrowing incident when a homeless-looking man on the street—Tess later finds out his name is Andre (played by Jaymes Butler)—runs after her and yells at her not to stay in the house. Tess is so frightened by this stranger, she runs into the house and locks herself inside. When she calls 911 to report the incident, the operator says that there are no police units available to go to that street.

Tess gets another big red flag when she goes to her job interview with the documentary filmmaker Catherine James (played by Kate Nichols), who asks Tess where she’s staying while Tess is in Detroit. When Tess mentions the neighborhood and that she’s staying at an Airbnb house rental, Catherine’s immediate reaction is surprise that this neighborhood has a house that meets Airbnb rental standards. Catherine is also very concenred that Tess is staying in that neighborhood, which has a bad reputation for crime, so Catherine urges Tess to be careful.

And something horrible does happen in that house. Luckily for viewers, it’s not revealed in the “Barbarian” trailer or other marketing materials. The movie avoids the pitfall of not giving away its best moments or the movie’s chief villain in the trailer. However, it’s enough to say (as shown in the “Barbarian” trailer) that there’s a long and sinister tunnel underneath the house. And lurking in that tunnel is someone identified in the movie’s credits as The Mother (played by Matthew Patrick Davis), who will definitely make viewers squirm.

Meanwhile, about halfway through the movie, “Barbarian” introduces another character who has a connection to this house. He’s a famous actor named AJ Gilbride (played by Justin Long), who lives in Los Angles. AJ is successful enough to be a steadily working actor who gets starring roles, but he’s not mega-rich. He owns some rental properties, including the house in Detroit where Tess and Keith are staying.

AJ is first seen in the story as he gets bad news from his agents: An actress named Melisa (voiced by Kate Bosworth), whom he is co-starred with in a TV pilot called “Chip Off the Old Block,” is accusing him of rape. Melisa is suing AJ because of this alleged sexual assault. AJ might also face criminal charges. AJ, who vehemently proclaims his innocence, tells anyone who’ll listen that the sex he had with Melisa was consensual.

Because of the scandal, the TV network for “Chip Off the Old Block” has decided that if the network picks up “Chip Off the Old Block” as a series, AJ will no longer be a part of the show. AJ says that he plans to countersue Melisa for defamation. His attorney advises AJ not to contact Melisa or talk to the media while the case is pending.

AJ gets more bad news when he visits his business manager, who tells AJ that AJ doesn’t have enough money to cover the cost of AJ’s legal fees. The business manager advises AJ to sell some of AJ’s property. The business manager also tells AJ that he no longer wants to work with AJ.

A desperate and despondent AJ goes to Detroit to see what he can do about selling the house that he owns at 476 Barbary. AJ has neglected the property so much, he wasn’t even aware that the property’s management company had been renting out the house to visitors for temporary stays. He’s in for a shock when he finds out what’s been going on at that house.

“Barbarian” has a flashback to the 1980s, when this Detroit neighborhood was safe, clean and well-maintained. A middle-aged man named Frank (played by Richard Brake) is seen going to a home supply store and telling a helpful sales clerk that he needs plastic sheets for a “home birth.” Viewers see that Frank is actually a bachelor, but he lets the sales clerk assume that he has a pregnant wife who will soon give birth. Frank doesn’t talk much, and there’s something “off” about him, because he acts like someone who has dark secrets.

Frank is then seen arriving unannounced at a house where a woman is home alone. He’s wearing a repairman’s uniform, and he politely tells the lady of the house that he’s from the utility company, and he needs to do an inspection. The woman lets him inside the house without hesitation. Frank then goes in the bathroom alone and unlocks the bathroom window.

After just a few minutes in the house, Frank thanks the woman resident, and he leaves the house. It’s at this point you know that Frank is going to break into the house later through that unlocked bathroom window. Who is Frank and what kind of criminal is he? Those answers are eventually revealed in the movie. This flashback scene also foreshadows that the neighborhood will go downhill when a male neighbor tells Frank that his family is moving soon because the neighborhood is “going to hell.”

“Barbarian” makes a few references to “white flight” in Detroit (when white residents moved out of certain Detroit neighborhoods because more black people were moving in) and the #MeToo movement. But these social issues don’t overwhelm the story, which remains mostly focused on the horror. “Barbarian” is an overall commentary on decay and neglect in communities, particularly in urban areas.

The characters in “Barbarian” are believable as people, even if some of their actions are illogical. For example, after Tess sees some disturbing things in the house, she stays in the house much longer than most people would. It’s very hard to believe that she can’t figure out other options on where to stay besides this creepy house.

“Barbarian” also brings up some questions that are never answered. There’s a part of the movie that shows there have been some missing people with a connection to the street where the house is. Wouldn’t any loved ones and friends be looking for these missing people? And who’s been maintaining the upkeep of the house? There’s no mention of housekeepers for this place. It’s the only house on the street that’s very neat and orderly on the outside of the building, even though the house’s front lawn looks run-down and messy.

A showdown scene near the end of “Barbarian” also doesn’t make sense on a physics level. However, the mystery of the house is plausible, as long as viewers believe the movie’s depiction that the cops in Detroit avoid this neighborhood as much as possible. “Barbarian” is also a cautionary tale about the dangers of renting a vacation home from strangers, particularly for women traveling alone. Tess obviously didn’t do enough research about the neighborhood and house where she’d be staying.

“Barbarian” writer/director Cregger (who has a cameo in the movie as a Detroit friend of AJ’s) could have paced the movie a little better, since the suspense-filled tension stops in areas where the tension should have been better-maintained. However, the movie has a talented cast, and the film delivers plenty of terrifying and ominous moments that should satisfy most horror fans. “Barbarian” is the type of horror movie where viewers shouldn’t overthink some of the details and should enjoy the terror ride for what it is.

20th Century Studios will release “Barbarian” in U.S. cinemas on September 9, 2022.