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14 Thrillers about bloodthirsty killers

The most frightening film killers have always been those who committed their atrocities, not only on screen, but in real life

By Ford KiddPublished 2 years ago 12 min read
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True stories of serial killers have often inspired filmmakers to create unforgettable and chilling images in thrillers. For example, Ed Gein, one of America’s most famous and violent maniacs, became the prototype for Norman Bates in Psycho and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.

Nevertheless, the most frightening film killers have always been those who committed their atrocities, not only on screen, but in real life. The directors chose a variety of ways to show the portrait of the killer. Someone showed his story through the prism of an investigation, someone tried to get into his head and conduct a psychoanalysis film show, someone simply left the maniac alone with the viewer, erasing all the lines between them and giving the opportunity to draw conclusions himself.

1. The Iceman, 2012

The crime biopic sheds light on the story of the hired killer Richard Kuklinski, who for a long time managed to lead two absolutely mutually exclusive lives in parallel: on the one hand, he is a cruel killer, on the other, he is an exemplary family man.

The Iceman is an American, biographical, crime drama of 2012. The film, quite worthy for a biopic budget of 10 million dollars, tells the story of the criminal and family life of the famous contract killer Richard Kuklinski. For many years he secretly led a double life. On the one hand, he was a cold-blooded, hired killer, on the other, an exemplary family man and father. We see the life story of a contradictory and icy man.

2. Summer of Sam, 1999

The killer, nicknamed Son of Sam, who shot young people in New York in the summer of 1976, will appear in Spike Lee’s film only in a few episodes, but these episodes will not be the only ones where blood will be shed. The city that never sleeps falls into a stupor. The identity of the killer is unknown, there is only a portrait of him far from reality, and the inhabitants begin to suspect each other. One of the suspects turns out to be the cheeky punk Richie (Adrian Brody, who shows absolutely outstanding hair in the frame). In the finale, the killer will be caught, and then Spike Lee will show us his real photo as a reminder of the terrible events that rocked New York on that truly bloody summer.

3. Monster, 2003

At the age of 15, Eileen Wuornos begins to engage in prostitution. In her early 30s, she meets a poverty-stricken girl named Shelby (Christina Ricci) and finds a raison d’être in her. Eileen tries to return to normal life, but to no avail: society is not ready to accept her back. Driven by a strange feeling of love for her new friend, she begins to kill and rob her clients, losing her head more and more with each new crime.

For her role in the depressing drama Patty Jenkins, the beauty Charlize Theron has changed beyond recognition thanks to the work of make-up artists and her own self-control. She had to gain more than 13 kilograms of weight. The actress was rewarded for her efforts: she received her first Oscar.

4. 10 Rillington Place, 1970

Director Richard Fleischer is trying to document the tragic events of the fall of 1949 with documentary precision. By then, Christie (Richard Attenborough) had already killed two women. He strangled them with gas, raped and buried them in his yard. But his worst crime was yet to come. The Evans family, headed by the naive and stupid Tim (John Hurt), is settled in the maniac’s house.

Soon, John kills Tim’s pregnant wife and their young child, making it look like Tim himself did it. Richard Attenborough creates an extremely convincing image of the killer on the screen, more like an elderly clerk than a sinister maniac, but what scares him most of all is his eternal tranquility, his soothing voice and some kind of monstrous routine of atrocities. Fleischer, who three years earlier made a film about another serial killer, Albert de Salvo, finally consolidates his status as one of the main masters of the genre. It is noteworthy that the shooting of the film took place in the same building where Christie committed the murders. True, the infamous street by that time was already called Ruston Close.

5. Memories of Murder, 2003

A melancholic South Korean thriller about the country’s first serial murders. In a small town near Seoul, a maniac is declared who goes hunting in rainy weather and kills young women, raping them before dying. Two crazy and silly cops (Song Kang Ho and Kim Rwe Ha) take on the case, and a detective from the capital (Kim Sang Kyung) arrives to help them.

The main paradox of Bong Joon-ho’s picture is that it is not the brutal murders that really scare you, but the police themselves, for whom fabricating evidence or knocking out testimony from a mentally retarded witness is quite a standard procedure. Bong Joon Ho worked on the script for a year, and, as he himself admits, in the first six months he did not write a single line, but only collected facts and communicated with real people who were involved in this high-profile case.

The killer will never be caught. Only memories will remain of him, which, as we will understand in the finale, even years will not be able to erase.

6. Badlands, 1973

Keith (Martin Sheen) will meet Holly (Sissy Spacek) on the lawn outside her house and they will immediately bond with each other. Soon he will point the muzzle of the revolver at her father, and then the first shot will be heard. The guy will get rid of the body, burn down the house, teach his beloved how to handle weapons, and the couple will go on the run. Driving around America, they will kill and rob people they meet on the way, calmly make plans for the future and dance under the light of the moon. In his debut film, Terrence Malick decided to change some of the events and the names of the heroes. In fact, their names were Charles Starkweather and Caryl Fugate. At the time of filming, Starkweather had already been executed, and Fugate was preparing for parole from prison.

7. Snowtown, 2010

16-year-old Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) lives in the godforsaken Australian town of Snowtown. One day, he and his brothers are abused by a neighbor. His mother finds out about this, beats the rapist on his own lawn and sheds tears for a long time, and then strikes up a relationship with the charming psychopath John Bunting (Daniel Henshall), who most of all in his life does not like pedophiles and every now and then, together with his friends, lynch them.

Soon, Jamie himself is imbued with Bunting’s manic ideas. Where their friendship will lead, probably every resident of Australia knows. In 1999, six barrels of acid were found in Snowtown, in which the bodies of pedophiles, homosexuals and drug addicts were placed – all those who, according to Bunting’s philosophy, were not worthy of life.

Snowtown is a debut for director Justin Kurzel and for many actors (the performer of the role of Jamie, for example, was found at a local mall). Kurzel gives viewers a ticket to the real Australian hell. This journey will be cruel, painful, at times almost unbearable, but a must for fans of the genre.

8. The Boston Strangler, 1968

For two years, he killed women in their apartments, leaving no trace of burglary on the doors. Why did they voluntarily let the maniac into their house? The police, led by detective John Bottomley (Henry Fonda), are trying to answer these questions and catch the criminal in Richard Fleischer’s film. The fact that the killer is Albert (Tony Curtis) is known to the audience from the very beginning, but the police will get to him only towards the end of the picture, and then her world will shrink into a small interrogation room, where a psychological battle will take place between the characters of Fonda and Curtis.

De Salvo will be sentenced to life imprisonment, but debate over the validity of the sentence will continue for decades. And only recently, in July 2013, de Salvo’s guilt was fully proven during the DNA examination.

9. Dahmer. 2002

David Jacobson’s low-budget psychological drama follows a psychopath with personality disorder known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, who received over 1,000 years in prison for the brutal murders of 17 youths. The director leaves almost all of Dahmer’s atrocities behind the scenes. His goal is not to shock the viewer, but to try to look into the soul of a bloodthirsty killer.

Jacobson shows us the cat-and-mouse game that the maniac plays with his victims, and looks for the causes of the disease in his past. Still not so well known to the general public, Jeremy Renner with the face of an innocent baby reliably conveys Dahmer’s inner world – sick, perverted and ruthless. And this world is much more frightening than the most cold-blooded murder scene can scare.

10. Jack the Ripper, 1988

A two-part television thriller about the investigation of one of history’s most famous serial killers, who terrorized London’s East End in 1888 and brutally murdered prostitutes. The best detective of Scotland Yard, Frederick Abberline (Michael Caine), takes on the case, enlisting the help of his partner (Lewis Collins), a psychic (Ken Bones) and local prostitutes. With a bulldog grip, Abberline is so involved in the search for the criminal that he gradually begins to lose his mind.

As a result, he will catch the killer, but justice will never prevail, and Abberline will remain a hero in the shadows. And this is almost the only time when screenwriters trying to adhere to historical accuracy give full free rein to their imaginations. In reality, Jack the Ripper will never be caught. But this is apparently because Victorian London did not have its own Michael Caine. A similar plot will be put into the Hughes brothers’ film “From Hell” 13 years later, where Johnny Depp will play the role of Frederick.

11. Zodiac, 2007

The story of the investigation into the serial murders that rocked San Francisco in the late 1960s. The killer, who took the pseudonym “Zodiac”, watched the victims in car parks and other deserted places, dealt with them, and then smugly bombarded the police and the media with letters with cryptograms. A local newspaper cartoonist (Jake Gyllenhaal), a newspaper crime columnist (Robert Downey Jr.) and a police detective (Mark Ruffalo) are trying to solve his charades.

We will not see the killer. His case will remain unsolved. Moreover, David Fincher does not play to the audience and does not emphasize the shootings or chases inherent in many representatives of the genre. He concentrates on the long, painstaking, exhausting but exciting process of finding a maniac.

12. Citizen X, 1995/ Evilenko, 2004

Two pictures at once about the most famous Soviet maniac are not too similar to each other, but remarkable in their own way. In the first film, the role of Chikatilo is played by Jeffrey DeMann, in the second – by Malcolm McDowell. Citizen X is more credible, has an eminent cast (in addition to DeMann, Stephen Rea, Donald Sutherland, Max von Sydow are involved) and focuses on investigation, Soviet bureaucracy and propaganda (the number of victims is growing, and on TV they continue to talk about America’s problems).

In Evilenko, more attention is paid to the personality of the criminal himself, while McDowell here with particular cruelty deals with the victims to the music of Angelo Badalamenti and gives out his next strong role. To get a more complete picture of the history of Chikatilo, it is probably worth watching both films.

13. M, 1931

The first sound film by the classic of German expressionism Fritz Lang, which laid the foundations of the noir genre. Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) ruthlessly killing little girls keeps the entire city in a panic. Trying to find evidence, the police comb every street and arrange raid after raid, which starts to get on the nerves of local criminal circles. The mafia rushes in search of the maniac and decides to arrange a trial over him. Lang does not pursue documentaries.

The real killer – Peter Kurten, nicknamed the Düsseldorf Strangler – committed crimes in a similar way, but his fate was very different. Lang’s goal is not to diagnose the maniac himself but to the entire German society. Thanks to Lang’s outstanding talent, masterfully playing with shadow and sound, as well as the strongest playing of Peter Lorre, who can cause goosebumps with his whistling Edvard Grieg, this great picture, after 82 years, is scary in a way that almost no other thriller was capable of.

14. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, 1986

Henry (Michael Rooker) lives in a small apartment with his prison buddy Ottis (Tom Towles) and his sister (Tracy Arnold). He kills young women in broad daylight – first alone, and then with the help of his boyfriend. In between deadly forays into the city, they drink beer in front of the TV, play the guitar and chat about the past, and from these conversations we learn that the first time Henry killed being a child, and then his own mother became his victim. The portrait of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas is portrayed by director and screenwriter John McNaughton in his toughest manner.

There are no less shocking murder scenes here than in the bloodiest slashers of the 1980s. He does not try to analyze the motives and actions of the maniac, but acts as a chronicler, giving viewers the opportunity to draw their own conclusions. The real Henry Lee Lucas confessed to 600 murders, although only 11 were officially proven. Which of these numbers is closer to reality, we will never know.

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Ford Kidd

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