F Marry Kill Review: Lucy Hale’s Game Performance Leads Laura Murphy’s Spotty Rom-Com Thriller

The first thing that made me skeptical about F Marry Kill is that Lucy Hale is on the cast list. I have seen her last two horror movies, Truth or Dare and Fantasy Island, both of which were among the worst films released in 2018 and 2020 respectively. I sure hope Lucy Hale-starred F Marry Kill, which was originally scheduled to hit the digital platforms last December, only to be pulled out a few weeks before the release in favour of releasing it alongside its international rollout in March this year, doesn’t hit triple whammy here.

The good news is that she carries her role well leading the movie as Eva, who recently broke up with her police officer boyfriend, Jake (RJ Fetherstonhaugh). She just turned 30 and one of her besties, Robin (Bethany Brown) soon took her picture and uploaded it on a dating app. It doesn’t take long before Eva finds her match — a handsome hunk named Mitch (Brendan Morgan) and it goes well on the first night of their date. She also discovers two more potential suitors, including Norman (Samer Salem), an installer who comes over to her place to install a security system, where they immediately hit it off after he asks her out for a date.

Then, there’s the third one named Kyle (Jedidiah Goodacre), who used to go to the same school together with Eva. While finding the right one among the three men, there’s a serial killer on the loose. The podcasters from Mark My Murder have even given the killer a nickname dubbed “The Swipe Right Killer”, given the fact that the female victims ended up dead as a result of online dating. Eva, who is also a frequent listener of the true-crime Mark My Murder podcast, soon finds herself caught in a potentially dangerous situation. One of her dates might be The Swipe Right Killer in disguise. Could it be Mitch? Or Norman? Or perhaps Kyle?

Laura Murphy, primarily a television series director who directed episodes like Girl Code and Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, combines the rom-com of online dating with a serial killer twist and fills her movie with plenty of red herrings. The whodunit angle is reasonably fun for the viewers to play an armchair detective guessing who’s the real Swipe Right Killer behind all the murders that rocked the city of Boulder.

But Murphy’s largely monotonous direction tends to rob the momentum of the movie, lacking enough stakes and suspense. Despite the movie’s R-rating, it hews closer to a more mainstream-friendly PG-13 vibe with Murphy doesn’t seem to be interested in showing the actual murders committed by the Swipe Right Killer. The violence is almost non-existent and the entire movie is mostly bloodless to the point it made me wonder if Murphy is clueless about what makes a serial-killer movie actually work.

However, she is more comfortable navigating the rom-com parts, who made the best use of Lucy Hale to play a frustrated young woman having a hard time settling for the right guy while determining whether one of them is the elusive killer. Aside from Hale, the movie also benefits from adequate supporting turns from Brooke Nevin as Eva’s overprotective sister Valerie to RJ Fetherstonhaugh as Eva’s ex-boyfriend Jake that she despised and Jedidiah Goodacre as the nerdy and socially awkward Kyle.

Murphy somehow does a good job in the third act, which not only subverts the expectation but also has fun mocking one of the tropes surrounding the serial-killer thriller, even though I have to admit it’s too late and too little. F Marry Kill is far from one of the worst movies that I thought it was going to be in my year-end list. It could have been better if only Murphy manages to raise her game on the serial-killer thriller parts.