Serial Killers

[poliphilo]

Silence of the Lambs was OK. Se7en was passable. But since then the weirdo serial killer has been done to death.

As a genre, the serial killer murder mystery is as artificial as Agatha Christie. Real life serial killers don't take their inspiration from the Book of Leviticus (or whatever.) They don't pit their enormous intellects against the police.

Real life serial killers are demented low-lifes. Psychopaths as brilliant as Hannibal Lecter is supposed to be don't go on killing sprees; they set up their own businesses or go into politics.

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Summer of Sam? It's an interesting take on the genre. For one thing, the killer is very much a background character. It concentrates instead on the lives of a group of young people (disco dollies and punks, since it's set in the late '70s), exploring their interactions with one another as any youth culture film would do, but setting them against the backdrop of the killings (which don't affect any of them directly). And the killer in question isn't some intellectually-driven, but socially dysfunctional, genius. He's just a guy with a mental disorder, who thinks the devil is telling him to kill people. Perhaps in that respect it helps that he is based on a real serial killer.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen it, but I think I'd like to.

I recently watched Nick Broomfield's two movies about Aileen Wuornos- a mixed up, crazy woman, pathetic and scary- and as much a victim as anyone she killed.

[zephyrcrow.livejournal.com]

I understand why movies like Monster get made, and I'm not one for doggin' on artistic expression, but I think that sucks a lot. I can't see any life experiences that justify killing. I mean... poor woman, but as soon as she started killing people, I stopped feeling sorry.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I hated Monster.

The Broomfield documentaries are rather different.

Actually I don't think Wuornos was a serial killer in the classic sense. She wasn't driven by horrid atavistic urges; she was a prostitute who killed a John in self defence and then, since she got away with it, went on to kill a few more.