"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Posts Tagged ‘Andrew Kevin Walker’

Psycho Killer

Thursday, October 15th, 2026

PSYCHO KILLER (2026) was written by Andrew Kevin Walker (BRAINSCAN, David Fincher’s THE KILLER), so obviously it was advertised as “FROM THE WRITER OF SE7EN.” But it’s not that type of movie. It reminded me more of HIGHWAYMEN – an odd, mostly quiet, sometimes audacious serial killer thriller, with a determined protagonist chasing a mysterious weirdo across the country. Its tone is grim and serious while its premise invites you to take part in satanic panic, and maybe if I thought it was trying to convince me that was real I would be bothered by it. Like if it came from Angel Studios. But I was not bothered. I had fun with it.

If you’re expecting something like SE7EN, the cool opening titles don’t necessarily dissuade you. I checked and they are not designed by Kyle Cooper/Imaginary Forces, but by Alexei Tylevich (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2022, BARBARIAN, REBEL MOON – PART ONE: A CHILD OF FIRE, and ALIEN: ROMULUS). Their film scratches and strobes may owe a debt to Cooper’s work, but they’re tinted red to tell us this is the Devil variant. We see pentagrams, pills, bullets, inverted crosses, negative images of newspaper articles with headlines like “WAVE OF HORRIFIC MUTILATION.”

These are a few of the title character’s favorite things. The movie opens inside his noisy car roaring down the highway, close up on his mirrored glasses (we will never see his face). Played by 6’ 6” ex-WWE wrestler James Preston Rogers (OUTLANDER, DEFENDOR, BEVERLY HILLS COP: AXEL F, Hulk Hogan in WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY), he’s a big muscle guy with long hair, trenchcoat, boots, sometimes enjoys a custom gas-mask type mask (pretty cool), always has his voice lowered like he’s a whistleblower having his identity protected in a tv interview. That’s even with the mask off – I’m not sure how he does it. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Killer (2023)

Thursday, November 16th, 2023

Yeah, I know, I agree – John Woo’s THE KILLER is what we mean when we refer to “THE KILLER.” Where my KILLER tape at, etc. If we mean the Henry Silva one we say “that Henry Silva movie THE KILLER.” But now we also have to say “David Fincher’s THE KILLER.” And that’s okay. I never thought I’d be able to deal with there being two totally different Steve McQueens, but now I’m out there doing it every day. I believe we can get past this. 

The title comes from Le Tueur, the name of the French comic book it’s based on. I don’t know it but it’s 13 volumes from 1998-2014, written by Matz and illustrated by Luc Jacamon. Matz (a.k.a. Alexis Nolent) also wrote Du Plomb Dans La Tete, which became Walter Hill’s BULLET TO THE HEAD. And he did another one called Cyclops that James Mangold was supposed to adapt in 2008, so that’s probly not happening anymore, but then again Fincher was first announced for this one way back in 2007. Anyway, it’s adapted by Andrew Kevin Walker, his first credited collaboration with Fincher since SE7EN, though he’s done rewrites on a bunch of them. (read the rest of this shit…)

Brainscan

Monday, November 3rd, 2014

tn_brainscan“Don’t you see? Senseless violence is not entertainment.”
“What is it then?”

I think I saw BRAINSCAN a long time ago and thought it was stupid. And I was right. But watching it again I think I give it a little more credit than I did back then. It’s definitely not of the quality one would hope for from the director of ROLLING THUNDER and the writer of SEVEN. But even in its dated technology (it’s about an evil interactive CD-ROM) it’s kind of ahead of its time, and it has a very ominous tone to it, darker and more unsavory than the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET sequels it was aping.

Like, in the opening scene Michael (Edward “and if you want to shine them on it’s ‘Hasta la vista, baby”” Furlong) is talking to his best bud for life Kyle (Jamie Marsh) on the phone while watching his neighbor Kimberly (Amy Hargreaves from BLUE RUIN) change her shirt. When he comes away from the window he turns on the TV… but then we see that he’s watching her on the TV from a camera he set up. Then he makes a hang up call and watches the footage of her answering in slow motion. At least he’s not jerking off as far as we can see, but jesus. This is our protagonist?

Michael is not that bad a prediction of what life is like for a big chunk of society now. He’s a kid who spends most of his time in his bedroom with his technology. He has a voice activated animated “Igor” on his TV screen that he tells to dial numbers for him or hold his calls or other things. It’s unclear how intelligent it is. He talks on speaker phone and the TV screen shows photo montages of his friends. He’s ahead of his time.

Where he gets this technology is not really spelled out, but his only parental interaction during the movie is a voicemail from his dad telling him he loves him and that “Business is going well here. I wish you were here with me to see all the new equipment.” His mom died in front of him when he was a kid. It still haunts him, and is implied as maybe the reason he’s so attracted to the morbid shit. (read the rest of this shit…)