‘Psycho Storm Chaser’ Review

Stars: Tara Erickson, Rib Hillis, Mary O’Neil, Ivan Djurovic, Clarke Wolfe, Ali Zahiri | Written by Jay Black | Directed by Buz Wallick

I was sold on Psycho Storm Chaser as soon as I read its synopsis. It reads: ‘An at-home care nurse must survive a category 3 hurricane as well as a storm chasing serial killer that uses storms to cover up his heinous crimes’. I was in luck too because the movie is nearly as dumb and ridiculous as that sounds.

That’s not to say I didn’t like it though. I know there are plenty of movie lovers that will read that synopsis and either decide they are not going to bother with the movie or they are watching it expecting to not enjoy it. I was hoping it would it least meet my relatively low expectations and have some fun with its own story.

Psycho Storm Chaser is at least aware that it is a little bit dumb and cheesy. It does play off as relatively serious but the acting is often so clichéd, over-the-top and deliberate, that there has to be an understanding by the cast of what they are making. They must know there’s that comedic edge to everything.

The villain’s origin story kind of backs up my thoughts on this. He’s both a serial killer and a ‘famous’ storm chaser. It seems he is kind of famous although not everyone in the film really knows who he is so I guess he’s more famous in his own head. But his love of killing and storms blends nicely together to cover up his crimes. Anyway, it seems he does all this because his wife decided to stay at home in the middle of a very bad storm so she could cheat on him. And that is the reason for his slightly strange killing spree. Seems about right.

Unfortunately, the death scenes and fight scenes are nothing to write home about. The moment of impact is often off-camera and we don’t see a lot. You do always see it coming though. There’s no tension building here and the only surprises are too ridiculous to shock. That one in the final moments was very obvious but also very stupid and explained so badly.

My favourite moments? There was a scene that involved a paperback book stopping the killer in his tracks. Another where the killer and his victim seem to be having some kind of face-off as they gurned away with the camera swapping from one face to another. Oh, and another moment was straight out of a (very poor) Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode as two women held a unplugged lamp and a tennis racket and posed together waiting for the killer to enter the room. There’s much much more of this too.

You might think I didn’t like this movie as much as I initially said after reading my thoughts but you’d be wrong. There’s something about these type of movies that I can’t help but enjoy. I could happily watch them all day and Psycho Storm Chaser is actually a better example of this type of film.

Read the synopsis, don’t go expecting anything too serious (or too well-acted for that matter) and you will enjoy Psycho Storm Chaser. I’ll be waiting for the sequel.

*** 3/5

Having previously screened on Lifetime in the US, Psycho Storm Chaser is currently scheduled for a UK release in July 2022, courtesy of High Fliers.