FILM REVIEW: Night of the Reaper (2025)
- Gav
- Sep 15, 2025
- 3 min read
Night of the Reaper - New Release Review
Director: Brandon Christensen
Starring: Jessica Clement, Ryan Robbins, Summer H. Howell, Ben Cockell, Bryn Samuel
Written by: Brandon Christensen, Ryan Christensen
Produced by: David Hiatt, Matt Manjourides, Justin A. Martell, Michael Peterson
Cinematography by: Clayton Moore
Original Score by: David Arcus, Terry Benn, Michelle Osis
Synopsis:
When college student Deena returns home and fills in for her friend on babysitting duties, she becomes the hunted victim of a serial killer known as the Reaper.
Thoughts:
Another throwback teen slasher set in the 1980s I hear you say. Don't judge too soon because 'Night of the Reaper' is darker and more cleverer than it first appears.
Like all great slasher films, we open with a prologue of sorts. The quiet suburbs. A large family home. A teenage babysitter. Two kids who don't want to go to bed just yet. And Pat Benatar playing on MTV. The stage is set. Emily (Summer H. Howell) finally gets the kids into bed and she's enjoying complimentary pizza, coca cola and cigarettes when she thinks she hears the parents arriving back home. The garage door is open but nobody is there. Emily goes for a little look. When she enters the house again there's an ominous note left for her and she assumes it's the kids pulling pranks, but of course there's something more sinister going on here than bratty little children.
You can probably guess that Emily sadly doesn't make it.
Fast forward and we're then introduced to Deena (Jessica Clement), a college student visiting her hometown for the first time since leaving. She's welcomed with open arms by her best pal Haddie, but there's tension lingering loosely in the air with some other characters. Perhaps Deena didn't leave on the best of terms with everyone. When Haddie comes down ill, Deena is asked to fill in for her babysitting the Sheriff's little boy, which she reluctantly accepts. And then her nightmare begins.
Deena's narrative runs parallel to Sheriff Rod (Ryan Robbins), with both subplots obviously having a connection of some kind. The mystery involves a bunch of VHS tape recordings, one relating to an older crime thought to have been a straight forward accident in the woods and another recording of Emily's murder from the prologue, previously unseen. The film then follows the Sheriff attempting to connect all the dots, with the events happening during Deena's babysitting shift being the last piece of the puzzle.
It's very evident from the opening credits that Director Brandon Christensen and his brother Ryan, who cowrote the script, are huge fans of the VHS era. The prologue looks like an homage to 'When A Stranger Calls' or 'Black Christmas' which are both inspired by the folk legend "the babysitter and the man upstairs" and which in turn themselves have both heavily inspired an entire generation of home invasion and slasher horror films. But this isn't really a traditional slasher film because there's actually not that many kills going on here.
The bulk of the film plays out more like a mystery with killer death scenes replaced by attempts to reconcile evidence in an ever evolving murder case. Unlike most of the 80s horror throwbacks, whether set in the 80s or just an homage, this one shows restraint in the typical neon lighting and overused needle drops. There's some there but it's not trite. The look of the film actually resembles 70s horror with shades of hazy brown and tinges of orange, it's got a lovely Autumnal feel to it since it's set at Halloween.
The killer in question doesn't show up too often as Christensen elects to build the tension slowly, perhaps too slowly for some, instead of going all out slicing and dicing. Although there is a really fun kill late on in the film. I enjoyed the pacing and how the story unravelled and there's a genuinely shocking twist that might make you want to do a rewatch.
'Night of the Reaper' isn't just another 'Stranger Things' inspired 'Fear Street' copy and paste, although there would be nothing wrong with that if it was. The mask used in the film looks familiar for sure. Maybe a wink to 'Halloween III: Season of the Witch'. Skull face is hanging on the pegs of every Halloween store in every town, so maybe the look of the killer could have been more inventive.
But Jessica Clement as Deena is a worthy final girl with more than a fighting spirit and although the killer's motives might be a questionable topic, the writing for the most part is really solid.
Verdict: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
-Gavin Logan
'Night of the Reaper' is available to stream exclusively on Shudder from September 19th