The drinks are flowing, the killer is lurking, and Siena Agudong has one very inconvenient mystery to solve. Here’s what works about the Tubi Original horror-comedy Buzzkill without ruining the party.
Watch NowThe killer's identity is safe here. So are the major deaths, reveals, and anything else that would get us immediately removed from the group chat.
Buzzkill is officially streaming on Tubi, which means Nora's extremely questionable murder-investigation strategy can finally be experienced rather than explained. The setup remains wonderfully ridiculous: a masked killer is targeting her sorority, Nora may have seen something that could identify them, and the clues are trapped inside memories she can only access when she's drunk. Getting closer to the truth therefore requires becoming progressively less qualified to deal with it.
On paper, that's the kind of premise that could run out of gas once you've heard the joke. Buzzkill wisely commits harder. Director Jem Garrard and writer Suzanne Keilly build the movie around the contradiction rather than treating it like a gimmick Nora eventually outgrows. Every recovered piece of information might help, but Drunk Nora isn't exactly becoming Sherlock Holmes in the process. She's still messy, impulsive, and capable of making the situation much harder for herself.
The result lands somewhere between slasher mystery, sorority comedy, and the kind of chaotic night where every new decision creates tomorrow's problem.
No spoilers required: Nora has officially entered her Final Girl era.
“One more drink, one more memory, one step closer to the mask.”
Surprisingly, the smartest part of Buzzkill may be that it gives Nora's memories their own visual language.
Instead of simply having her suddenly remember another convenient clue, drunken memories appear through red-hued freeze frames that Nora can move through while trying to reconstruct details her sober brain can't access. Scribbled notes and half-useful reminders become part of the investigation too, meaning the audience gets to participate in figuring out what Drunk Nora was attempting to tell Sober Nora.
It turns the central joke into an actual mystery mechanic. You're looking for details alongside her while also dealing with the deeply unreliable person who collected them.
Basically, Nora left herself clues. Drunk Nora was not necessarily the person you wanted leaving the clues.
Nora could've become exhausting very quickly. Siena Agudong doesn't let that happen.
Her comic timing makes Nora's bad decisions entertaining, but there's enough warmth underneath the chaos to keep you invested in why she's refusing to let the mystery go. She isn't suddenly transformed into an impossibly competent horror heroine once the killer appears. Nora screws up. She panics. She gets distracted. She keeps trying anyway. That imperfection was intentional; Garrard has described Nora as deliberately unlike the traditional hyper-capable Final Girl.
Agudong also understands when to let the absurdity of the premise do the work. Drunk Nora doesn't need to become a completely different cartoon character for the comedy to land. The fun is watching the same person lose several increasingly useful filters while still attempting to conduct a murder investigation. She may be messier than the average survivor, but Nora has still earned her place alongside the women fighting through Final Girl Energy.
Every chaotic detective eventually needs somebody willing to participate in the chaos. Enter Beth.
Angela Daytona Wu turns the routinely overlooked Sigma sister into Nora's unexpectedly game investigative partner, and their pairing becomes one of the movie's best surprises. Beth isn't entering the situation with Nora's recklessness or confidence; she's simply willing to help, which somehow keeps leading her deeper into an investigation nobody should reasonably want to join. Wu makes that willingness especially funny because Beth never needs to match Nora's chaos to keep up with her.
Their chemistry gives Buzzkill something more useful than another round of sorority infighting. Watching two very different people slowly become an accidental mystery-solving unit gives the movie a friendship worth rooting for while everything around them gets increasingly bloody.
Sorority slashers come with decades of built-in expectations. Big house. Big party. Bigger secret. A group of women introduced just in time for somebody wearing a mask to start reducing the headcount.
Buzzkill knows those rules and enjoys messing around inside them.
The Sigmas are dysfunctional, competitive, image-conscious, and frequently irritated with one another, but the movie doesn't treat Greek life as generic wallpaper. Sorority politics actually create complications for Nora's investigation, while personalities like Brec Bassinger's ambitious Kendall bring plenty of camp to the house. Bassinger has said the movie deliberately “campifies” familiar horror tropes, while describing Kendall as someone whose friendships and girl group genuinely matter beneath the Southern belle presentation.
Not every sister gets equal room to develop though. The movie is much more invested in Nora and Beth than several members of the ensemble, but the house still feels like somewhere relationships existed before the killer showed up. Which makes murdering everybody rather rude. Anyone ready to make another deeply questionable trip through Greek life can keep rushing into trouble inside Tubi's College Greek Life Mysteries collection.
If you're coming for two hours of relentless terror, this probably isn't that party.
Buzzkill is a horror-comedy, and the comedy is doing a lot of the driving. The masked-killer setup still delivers slasher violence and bloody consequences, but the overall energy stays playful rather than oppressive. Expect blood, kills, and slasher tension, but the movie would much rather make you laugh between them than leave you afraid to turn the lights off.
The mystery gives you someone to suspect. The killer gives you someone to avoid. Nora gives you somebody to yell advice at despite knowing perfectly well she cannot hear you. Comfort horror people, your Friday night has plans.
Come for the premise. Stay because Buzzkill actually knows what to do with it.
The drunk-memory mechanic gives the mystery its own personality, Agudong commits to a Final Girl who's allowed to be a complete disaster, and Nora and Beth's unexpected partnership gives the comedy something genuinely likable to hang onto. It isn't trying to reinvent the slasher by becoming darker, crueler, or more self-serious. Its better idea is letting the genre loosen up and have a little fun with its own rules.
Horror fans who like their slashers campy, funny, bloody, and populated by people making decisions you'd strongly advise against should know what to do next. Terror on Tubi has plenty more ways to keep the horror going once the Sigma party finally clears out.
Buzzkill is streaming free now on Tubi. Once you've survived the party, our sorority-slasher survival guide has eight more reasons to reconsider Greek life.
No spoilers. But maybe hydrate.
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