Why is there an offscreen narrator reading aloud the comic panel dialogue boxes that open the show? Perhaps because, after two decades spent lending valuable support to brash teen comedies, Comic-Con staple Jay Baruchel (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, She's Out of My League) —here acting for the first time as producer, writer, director, and star — knows his audience. For the farewell issue of Slasherman, author Todd (Jesse Williams), his publisher/investor Ezra (Baruchel), and their respective womenfolk, Kathy and Aurora (Jordana Brewster and Niamh Wilson) decide to hit the promotional trail; call it a working vacation to promote a successful comic book based on its eponymous and still-active serial killer. Determined to add a little “medicine to the sugar” that Ezra considers essential to appeasing the fan base, Todd soon learns the hard way that it’s always best to write the ending first. There was a flash — around the time a radio interviewer accused the author of hero-worshipping a psychopath and lionizing male violence — when the prospect arose of Todd as a modern day dime novelist, a Ned Buntline chronicling the 200-mile spoor of a serial killer and the trail of corpses left in his wake. The thought lasted long enough for the film to come to be precisely what it argued against. (2019) — Scott Marks
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