Director: Jeffrey Primm
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Going about their lives, a group of college students continuing their classes on forensic anthropology find themselves knocked off by a strange masked figure, and when they find a connection between them and the killer must try to stop the rampage to save themselves.
Review:
This was a fairly solid and enjoyable murder mystery-themed slasher. One of the better features of this one is the strong setup that brings about a rather fun mystery to solve regarding the killer’s identity. The whole first half of this one goes through the early exploits of the class, getting a feel for who they are and what to expect from their teachings, which is then mixed together rather nicely with the excuse for them to take investigative anthropology training, which would serve well to set up the rest of the film. The fact that the series of deaths involving the masked killer taking out the various members of the class and other faculty around town means that they have to utilize their training to the point of looking after the clues left behind at the various crime scenes, snoop around on their own to look for extra clues and motivation, and try to unravel the fine mystery here since it’s not easy to guess the motivation or identity of the killer.
This is all aided rather well with a solid series of chases and encounters throughout here, with the killer appearing randomly and without warning. The first incident involving taking out the couple in their home sets everything on a fine starting point, much like a fun follow-up encounter in a college library that starts the rest of the film by involving the students in the mystery. That sets up a series of fun chases and brutal encounters that take place in short, brief encounters spread throughout the city, where the masked killer leaps out of the darkness to launch a surprise attack in various houses or other chases in public. The final confrontation where the reveal takes place and the series of brawls that give the film an appropriately fun series of action-packed encounters and decent gore for a lot to like here.
There isn’t a lot to dislike here that holds it down. One of the main issues here is the wholly convoluted first half that tries to tie together several plotlines but is somewhat clumsy about doing so. The main group of characters here is simply bland stereotypes that don’t have much depth to them, with all the focus on their classes rather than anything else, so it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for any of them to be chosen as red herrings based on the interactions they have. Several of the other potential suspects are also plainly there for introducing the possibility of red herrings, and again, with the majority of this section playing out with a mystery investigation angle, it tends to cause this to be a bit too long. The other slight issue here is the fact that the blood and gore featured here is so obviously cheap CGI, and it renders a lot of the deaths to lose their impact, all of which hold this one done overall
Overview: ***.5/5
A generally effective and enjoyable slasher throwback, there’s enough to like here that it comes off rather nicely, and it’s able to hold off the few drawbacks present that bring it down slightly. Those with an interest in this type of throwback slasher effort, who enjoy the genre in general, or who are curious about it, will have the most to like here, while most others might want to heed caution.
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