2x4BASH presents the play Hookman, a darkly humorous, tense, surreal variation on the slasher genre.

Lexi is a 17-year-old UConn freshman, struggling to navigate the ups and downs of her first year of college. Having left California behind for the East Coast life, she confronts classic difficulties including an unsympathetic roommate, homesickness, and clashing with her longtime best friend Jess over not attending the same college.

But there’s another problem, one that’s not so easily ignored: Hookman, a serial killer who’s said to target companionless girls.

His presence in the 2x4BASH play at Western Stage starts small, as a throwaway remark Lexi makes in Scene 1 as she and Jess drive to the movie theater.

LEXI: My mom’s crazy. You have no idea…She keeps sending me all these crazy emails about how kidnappers kidnap you by playing tapes of babies so you’ll be like “Oh, a baby,” and then—

JESS: Oh, I read about that.

LEXI: Or like how they go to parking lots with scissors and hide under cars. And she’s like,“Watch out for Hookman.”

JESS: What’s Hookman?

Hookman, as it turns out, is more than just a slasher urban legend. He’s a sinister presence (silently portrayed by 2x4BASH veteran Curtis Hines) that threatens Lexi’s entire existence. He makes leaky red pens and stained pie knives into potential murder objects. He stalks her in the form of sketchy grad students who may or may not have hooks for hands. He causes things to go horribly wrong, leaving those affected to blame each other.

On the other hand, he’s probably not real. Or rather, he’s very real—just not in the way we normally see serial killers. That’s because Hookman doesn’t focus on the actions of a Ghostface or Freddy Krueger. Instead, it focuses on the repressed, often terrifying inner monsters that threaten to change or destroy a whole life.

Is Hookman guilt? Toxic masculinity? Arrogance? Paranoia? A mix of all of these?

The audience is left to guess, and guess we do.

Marketing this play as a millennial-geared horror story would be technically correct, but that description doesn’t begin to convey how bizarre it is. Hookman takes an entirely believable yarn about college students acting trite and unravels it.

It shuffles timelines and warps reality into an unreliable mess, without ever feeling messy itself. And that’s mostly because playwright Lauren Yee does a good job striking a balance between the relatable and the surprising.

Most of the humor in this play stems from the satirization of college life—a horror in its own right. The audience laughs in sympathy with Lexi as she navigates the parts of college not covered in campus tours. Over-enthusiastic club recruiters on campus shove pamphlets in her face and pretend to know who she is. Her roommate, Yoonji, is the kind of dead-eyed, passive-aggressive drink hoarder that most people tolerate but no one really wants. The only helpful qualities of her resident advisor (Andrew Niederbrach) are selling weed and unlocking doors.

The characters themselves are also written as walking contradictions. The punchy, choppy, back-and-forth dialogue, delivered without missing a beat, is one of the most accurate examples (that I’ve seen) of actual teen conversation. And yet, nobody in the show acts entirely...normal.

YOONJI: You should call him. He was cute.

LEXI: I think he might be a serial killer.

YOONJI: Oh, okay...Wait, were you done?

It seems like everyone is propelled not by morals but by unconscious motives—whether that be the disturbing thoughts in the back of the brain that most of us try to shut out, or the selfishness that exists beneath our superego. It’s pretty clear from the start of the play that none of the characters ever listen to each other or take each other seriously.

Knowing this, it would be far too easy for all the actresses to play their roles as, according to Yee, “vapid valley girls.” (A note that she adds to the character list actually warns against it.) So I was pleased to see that every supporting woman supplied the intricacies of her role with her own brand of intensity.

Niki Moon plays lead protagonist Lexi as spirited, street-smart, sharp-edged, and focused. Egotistical would be the wrong word, but her independence isolates her. She doesn’t show vulnerability often, which makes the moments when she does all the more rewarding. Micaela David plays a motherly, defensive Jess, who clicks well with Moon’s Lexi. When the two share the stage, each complements the other in unexpected ways.

A wonderfully versatile Andrea Felix-Cervantes, as Yoonji, pulls off listlessness and recklessness equally well. Peppy social justice advocate Chloe (Chelsea Palmer) and obnoxious teenager Kayleigh (Larisa Palaniuk) play off their stereotypes, while mixing in a particular form of macabre humor that’ll occasionally make audience members double-take.

Despite its disjointed nature, Hookman drops some bleak yet extremely direct present-day insight. And since the play utilizes unconventional storytelling anyway, it’s not afraid to state its case in a pretty shocking way.

On multiple occasions, the play draws harsh attention to the disadvantages society heaps on college-age girls. The discussion of rape culture (other potential trigger warnings include maiming and death) always requires careful treading, and yet Hookman does a lot more than tread. It shows, on multiple occasions and in detail, how the subject is too often trivialized in colleges—and victims blamed.

For a concept this simple, Hookman brings a lot to the table: thriller, drama, humor, blood. When I see plays, I tend to like to immerse myself in a perspective different from my own. But as a millennial watching a millennial-fueled piece (created by millennial-driven company 2x4BASH) it was still a pretty good mindf*ck. And I found the experience rewarding.

Though in all seriousness, in an era where the rift between millennials and their predecessors seems like one of the largest in recent history, a bold piece demonstrating the visceral side of our struggles isn’t so out of line.

(2x4BASH’s other production, Really Really, has a second round of performances this coming weekend and features some more cerebral, dark humor and millennial themes.)

Hookman runs Aug. 11-12. Really Really runs Aug 4, 5, 18 & 19.