FrightFest Review: Psychopaths (2017)

On the night a convicted serial killer is executed, several psychopaths go on a murderous rampage...

When attending an event like FrightFest, you can approach it one of two ways, I feel. Either go in blind to each film, avoiding trailers and such only going by the notes on the FrightFest webpage, or you can look every film up, finding out all you can, watch trailers, or clips to get a feel for the films in question.

While I have nothing against the second approach, I tend to follow the first one, go in blind. As a result, you effectively take a chance on each film. Sometimes you get a pleasant surprise. Sometimes you get a poor one. Sadly, Psychopaths falls in the latter category.

I've said before and said it too at FrightFest, that every film has its own logic. It needs a character the audience can relate to in some way, to get into the story. Now, that doesn't mean the character has to be likeable, but certainly they have to be ones that keep the audience interested.

Sadly, writer and director Mickey Keating using the format of different stories that cross over in fleeting ways, doesn't give us that. What we get instead is a series of often brutal and bloody scenes of violence as each of the psychopaths does their 'thing.' The film starts for example with a cop being brutally beaten then burned to death. We then get stranglings, stabbings, batterings with a weapon, people being shot or being tortured. While these scenes are done well, perhaps too well on a couple of occasions, the characters themselves are not that interesting in truth, you simply don't care about any of the characters who get caught up in the violence, either inflicting it, or on the receiving end.

As a result, you are left with the scenes of violence and little else to engage the audience.  The voice over doesn't help at all, instead becoming annoying. The continued flashbacks to the serial killer who was executed are full of ramblings that do nothing. It's a poorly written film from Keating, though to be fair, he does direct the film better than he writes.

As for the cast, really only Ashley Bell as Alice (one of the psychopaths) really registers. The others, including James Landry Hebert do their best but are let down by the writing.

With events like FrightFest or my local film festival, Dundead, when you make the decision to take a chance on a particular film there is a risk you won't like it. Sadly Psychopaths is one I didn't like at all and was the worst film I saw at FrightFest.

Rating - 1/5

(No trailer available, instead a brief clip)