At the beginning of the plucky horror hybrid SHERYL,  Ted (Shaan Sharma), and Sheryl (Anthea Neri Best) are on a date. A serial killer date. Ted’s a serial killer and the two are gleefully hunting down their victims in what appears to be the southwest countryside. Of course, things don’t go as planned and the connection between Ted and Sheryl begins to disintegrate. A fight breaks out and the two part ways. Now, in a normal horror film we, as the audience, would be focused on the victims. Here, writer-director Justin Best puts the victims aside to focus on the interpersonal and hum-drum inner drama of the killers and the results are strangely poignant and overtly comical.

Sheryl is a beautiful Phillapina navigating the Los Angeles dating scene. As she chats with her mother on the phone, post-breakup, we notice a disturbing focus placed on appearance. Our titular heroine reaches out to bestie Amanda (Chelsea Spirito) and that goes about as well as expected. Meanwhile, suave Detective Reyes (Christopher Cendana) and hardnosed Detective Vasquez (Jade Ramirez) are hot on the trail of the killer or killers that perpetrated the atrocities that Ted and Sheryl committed. SHERYL is a wonderfully silly horror-dramedy romance that toys with convention and social commentary.

Best imbues Sheryl with a certain charm that makes us side with her even though she is on the stabbing end of a knife. Sheryl just wants to be viewed as a datable, if possibly, a sexy female. What is frightening is the lengths that she will go to be validated. Sheryl’s ultimate goal is validation by being perceived as desirable. How far will this poor woman go to be considered worthy?

Writer-director Best is one sharp filmmaker with an eye for cinema and an ear for music. SHERYL bats genres around like a cat with a ball of yarn. We jump from gritty slasher to rom-com to farce to romance and over to comedy in the first five minutes of the film. It acclimates us to the variety of tones headed our way, but it’s also just phenomenally entertaining.

SHERYL is a tight little movie with a lot to say. Themes of cultural acceptance, gender, and societal conformity, and the absurdity of dating are all mined to various effect. If there were notes that I could offer it would be these; I wanted to see more of an exploration of personal and societal identity in connection to self-worth. Yes, that is esoteric, but this movie goes there.  Yes, with various amounts of blood, but it does touch on these things.

Minor notes aside SHERYL is a smart horror-comedy that takes aim at societal, racial, and gender norms. This is a spunky slasher that gives us a fair amount of mayhem, a good amount of blood, and just enough to think about.

6 Out of 10