Director Jill Gevargizian’s The Stylist (2020) reminds us that serial killers walk among us and can be hidden in plain sight — it can be your everyday mannequin storeowner, hospital lab worker, or in this case the local hairdresser. Though this film has a definite touch of femininity, The Stylist is brutal and does not look away during its graphic slayings! My jaw hit the floor within the first 10 minutes and though there were some lulls after the beginning, The Stylist is, overall, an aesthetically magnetic movie with an emotionally-charged killer at its center.

The film follows a hairstylist named Claire (Najarra Townsend) who moisturizes the scalps of customers by day, and by night, cuts the scalp from peoples’ heads. Never knowing the love of family or friendship, Claire finds solace wearing the hair of others while she suffers from social-ineptitude and mental disorders. When a nervous bride named Olivia (Brea Grant) begs for her hair services for her wedding, Claire reluctantly agrees, encouraged by the promise of a new friendship. Olivia’s extension of friendship soon turns into Claire becoming obsessed with her, and when Olivia begins to pull away from Claire’s intense attention, Claire begins to stalk Olivia, unable to control her deadly emotions.

The Stylist plays the long game with the hunt, but luckily there are pitstops for random murders along the way, setting the pacing of this film on a low simmer until its shocking and unforgettable finale. The Stylist‘s serial killer, Claire, is one of the most stylish serial slashers of cinema — a killer after my own heart, clad in chic outfits while carrying out gruesome murders. I loved Gevargizian’s use of color in the film, lots of reds that complimented the red-headed murderer, but also, the unnerving use of neon lights as well as the brightness of day while Claire hid in plain sight, but then during her murderous moments, darkness seeped in and the movie then turned to dimly lit allies, streets, and murky basements. There was also a lot of use of yellow, green, and purple, which matched the fall weather setting of the movie and looked really great pictorially.

The only real gripe I had about the movie is that it felt a tad too long; Gevargizian had a lot of shots establishing that the killer is a loner, but that was already well established from the beginning, thanks to Najarra Townsend’s primo acting performance. Subdued but vulnerable, and methodical but endearing, Townsend as Claire is one of the most fleshed-out slasher characters I have seen in a while, as this movie is told from the killer’s perspective rather than her victims’. If there were not these lulls from shots of loneliness, the movie would have felt more like a thriller, eager to tell its core story with an engaging pace, but the lingering and frequent lonely shots seemed like overkill. Perhaps including scenes from Claire’s unloving childhood, which are only alluded to, would have been better for completing the narrative.

One might compare the approach of The Stylist with something like Maniac (2012) or Monster (2004) — movies told primarily from the serial killer’s perspective, as they are the protagonist. These kinds of narratives are really too few and far between, as slashers are too often given superficial motivations and character development during a film, and usually, the film instead focuses on the equally superficial final girl. However, in The Stylist, the final girl is the killer, and though she certainly has some killer outfits, she is a lot more than superficial.

7.5 out of 10