A shining example of why pizza delivery workers deserve that tip money, Satanic Panic follows a young 20-something girl with barely five bucks to her name and sing-song dreams of traveling to Australia. She’s the newest hire at a pizza joint, and therefore the one that gets the worst delivery assignments. After a day full of deliveries that left her shortchanged on the tips, one final stop in an out of territory rich neighborhood leaves her stranded and the target of upper class Baphomet worshippers looking to sacrifice her before the sun comes up. What transpires is a night of chaotic Satanic rituals, demon summoning, and a whole lot of bloodshed in a very chaotic and tonally strange horror comedy.

Penned by Grady Hendrix (Mohawk) based on a story by Hendrix and Ted Geoghehan (Mohawk, We Are Still Here), Satanic Panic seems intended to be a young adult film in the vein of Hendrix’s novel My Best Friend’s Exorcism. Our lead protagonist and unfortunate pizza gal (Hayley Griffith) is whisked on a fast-paced adventure of survival that includes all sorts of insane run-ins with lesser demons, cultists, and more. The light hearted “anything goes” plot and dialogue also points toward a horror film written for a younger audience. That she finds a new friend and ally in the lead cultist’s daughter (Happy Death Day’s Ruby Modine) furthers that young adult feel via girl power buddy comedy. But it’s at odds with director Chelsea Stardust’s direction for the film.

As charming as Griffith and Modine are (Modine is especially great), they seem miscast. These girls are in their twenties but both were virginal and written as if they were intended to be teens. Griffith’s character is extremely naïve and inexperienced for her age. Modine fares better as the knowledgeable one guiding her new best friend through the pitfalls and traps of Satanic attacks. As for the cultists, they’re a bunch of infighting worshippers played for broad, high camp laughs, with Rebecca Romijn as the competent leader.

There’s gore and creatures aplenty as the Baphomet worshipers rely on guts and viscera to guide them in their hunt for their virginal sacrifice and the body count piles up. But the rules of this world are often relayed in confusing fashion, if at all. Romjin bakes up a weird creature she pulled from the depths of her dying husband’s neck (played by real life husband Jerry O’Connell in a cameo), sends it to find the girl, and we never really see it again- the next thing to attack the girl is a sheet demon? The biggest insight we get into our pizza girl’s backstory is relayed over a moment of heightened panic and chaos as the girls are warding off another attack. It’s done in such a way that it’s hard to focus on her dialogue when the scene is delivering one of the biggest gross-out gags of the movie.

That’s just the beginning of the strange directorial choices made that makes Satanic Panic puzzling. Stardust seems reluctant to go for close-ups, further muddying certain character actions. We see Romjin eating something gnarly that she pulls from the fridge, but we don’t know what it is because Stardust prefers to frame the shot from a distance without ever cluing the audience in. For the grand finale, Stardust opts to go full blown orgiastic bacchanalia, the final nail in the coffin that her vision for the film is very different from the one the story seems to suggest.

Satanic Panic has a fun concept hidden underneath two opposing movies; one that a 13-year-old me would’ve had a blast with versus a much gorier, raunchier horror comedy that was never intended for a younger audience. Those warring ideas are further confused by some strange editing and directorial choices that make the methods and motives of some of the characters not so clear. The cast is great, though, and fully to commit to every bit of weirdness this story demands. Romjin is a delight as the high-camp priestess, and Modine is a star on the rise. The comedy is emphasized over the horror, and the sight gags and jokes land with mixed results. There’s a fun movie to be had here, and plenty that will entertain casual viewers. But it’s hard to discern just who the target audience is when it’s all over the map tonally and the script doesn’t seem to align with the director’s vision. In other words, Satanic Panic is the confusing embers of a great concept.