Nowadays the serial killer as a monster in Horror movies is a very common character. But before talking about it, the comprehension of this genre is really important to understand why a serial killer could be a perfect Horror monster. Normalcy and otherness are two concepts which appear in all Horror stories, as well as in literature as in movies. On the one hand, normalcy is embodied by a world ruled by similar laws. On the other hand, the otherness is the monster who threatens this normal world brutally. That way, normalcy and otherness are the personification of good and evil respectively. Noticeably this breach is not always so clear because many times the director uses the movie to criticize the world where he lives.
Indeed, many monsters have been used in many different ways throughout history depending on historical morals. The most evident example is the zombie or the undead corpse. In the beginning, films such as White Zombie (Víctor Halperin, 1932) or I Walked With a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943) presented this creature as a local monster who is controlled by a mad scientist. A turning point was in 1968, when Night of Living Dead (George A. Romero) was released, since zombies were converted into a crowd of creeping beings, starved of flesh and brains, and they were able to use some tools due to their limited intelligence. Taking the classical monster, Romero uses it to criticize his society, showing more dangerous men than zombies, who are able to do whatever it takes to survive.
As with the zombie, the serial killer has had its own development. Despite not being a classical monster, but a modern monster, from the moment of its inception, it has been very popular and unique. The uniqueness lies in the fact that the serial killers exist in real life and in fiction. Ed Gein, Albert DeSalvo, Henry Lee Lucas were the inspiration source for Horror movies. Not only were real serial killers the only protagonists of these movies, but also their acts served to create invented serial killers who scared audiences. Consequently a scary monster was created who committed the worst crimes such as torture, killing, rape, murder, cannibalism, necrophilia, etc., often and enjoyed doing them. Although Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) is considered the first serial killer horror movie, we have to outline several movies which could be considered as precedents.
In the US one cannot talk about Horror films without referring to Universal Pictures. The thirties was the decade when Universal took Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, etc., and they became classical horror monsters. Somehow these classical monsters resemble serial killers in their deviant nature and behavior. For instance, Dracula had been human before turning into a vampire due to selling his soul to the Devil. From that moment, Dracula had to feed on human blood and, not only that, but he also made use of people to make into enslave vampires. What actually scared people was their human nature had vanished and the monstrosity occupied what they had been before. With mad scientists something similar happened, because despite being a human being, they committed the worst acts in order to achieve their scientist goals or to dominate the world. Murders in the Rue Morgue (Robert Florey, 1932) presents Doctor Mirakle, who wants to demonstrate that human beings are an evolution from apes. To prove it, he abducts young virgin women and injects them with ape blood, but they die and, for that reason, he has to kidnap others. Admitting that his mankind, his madness is responsible for his outrages, distancing himself from fellow men. Both cases assemble the monster’s traits, what could be summarized in endangering the world at large with evil and illegal acts. In a certain way, these monsters stand for a usage to support the community running and, from this point forward, the serial killer will employ the same means to instill fear in audiences.
Not only did Universal analyze this heinous nature, but also other film producers went in depth into the Horror genre. Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde (Víctor Fleming, 1941) was a MGM production, based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel. This scientist is a human being, and experiments with himself to prove the existence of good and evil in a person, and finally, the transformation will not depend on drinking the serum. Both of them are the same person, they are human, but Mr. Hyde enjoys the suffering and the pain. Thus, the lack of empathy, what makes us human, becomes loathsome, converting Hyde into a heartless abomination. However, unlike Jeckyll, who is not conscious of his acts, in the majority of serial killer Horror movies, the murderer is aware of what he is doing in every moment, which is supposed to be even worse.
As these movies, there were others such as Strangler of the Swamp (Frank Wisbar, 1946), Macabre (William Castle, 1958) or House of the Haunted Hill (William Castle, 1959) among other, which displayed men’s misdeeds. In all cases, there is a huge difference to serial killer horror movies: the focus on the depiction of killer’s crimes. To conclude with this introduction, there are two motion pictures which are worth mentioning: House of Wax (André de Toth, 1953) and The Mad Magician (William Castle, 1954). Both of them are performed by Vincent Price, who gave life to two different murderers who see themselves forced to kill in pursuit of their dreams. Certainly we could say they bear a resemblance to serial killer movies in many aspects: serial murders, attempt to satisfy their aspirations (to be renowned artists in both cases)... Furthermore, the plot focuses on their dreadful homicides, how their victims are exhibited as a part of the performance and the process of investigation.
In summary, even thought it was not until the release of Psycho when the serial killer subgenre was born, previously there had been several movies whose monsters announced their arrival and the taste of audience for the human wickedness.
Psycho was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, released in 1960, and was a pivotal moment for several reasons. Firstly, the recognition of the director allowed him to break the Hollywood classical style narrative, because the story is not about what it tells us during the first 45 minutes, Marion Crane’s theft of 40.000 $. Next, the most shocking scene is shown: a shower, a naked woman and a woman’s shadow stabbing Marion until death. That way, a normal activity becomes unsafe and menacing, which brought back a feeling of fear and dread that has never been forgotten. Since that moment, the audience empathizes with Norman Bates, the motel’s owner, who is supposed to be subject to his dominant mother. In fact, the conversation before Marion’s murder allows us to know better Norman Bates, a very introvert man, subdued by his mother (“a boy’s best friend is his mother) and with a very weird hobby: taxidermy. Two more crimes are committed until it is brought to light that the man responsible for the deaths is Norman Bates, who suffers from split personality, being the main reason why he keeps his mother’s embalmed corpse sitting on a rocking chair.
This frame was so shocking that people could not believe what they were watching. Nonetheless, the most shocking aspect was that, unlike the previous movies, this motion picture was based on a true story, Ed Gein’s crimes, which frightened people even more. An idea was occasioned after watching it: anyone could be sick and a serial killer as Norman. Indeed, Hitchcock chose the family, the most important institution, and revealed it as a sinister element, which could be the germ of the worst creature: the human monster. That way, it could be the result of repressive and abnormal family relationships.
Without the slightest doubt, this movie changed the genre because, up to this time, Horror had focused on communism, showing them as the most relentless enemies which could exist. Additionally, Psycho establishes the danger and the evil in the heart of America with an average American man who can be guilty of the worst atrocities without feeling any remorse.
Psycho was very successful in such a way that there were other movies which took it as a model and imitated it like Homicidal (William Castle, 1961). This movie, influenced by the sex-change operation of Christine Jorgensen as well, focuses on an inheritance and a plan to receive it and Warren’s transvestism. This fact reminds us of Norman cross dressing like his mother and his madness.
On the other hand, there were other movies based on real serial killers such as The Boston Strangler (Richard Fleischer, 1968). Tony Curtis performs Albert DeSalvo, best known as the title says “The Boston Strangler”. At first, this motion picture could seem similar to a Detective-Mystery movie but the last 20 minutes, narrates the discovery of his involvement in the murder of 13 women. For that reason, it is considered a horror movie because this motion picture reflects on the possibility of having more personalities than we believe, behaving as they want. Consequently, everyone can be a murderer without being responsible for his felonies. It is worth mentioning this film because it was the first and one of the few which proposed the possibility that serial killers were not aware of committing crimes.
It is important to know that during the sixties, the relaxation of the censorship allowed movies to deal with violence and sex with more freedom. This calm concluded the end of Code Hays and the enactment of the Motion Picture Association of America’s film-rating system in 1968. This time spanning encouraged the development of gore and exploitation subgenres, which found in the serial killer a constant resource. Blood Feast, released in 1963 and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, is considered as the first gore feature film. The plot is about a serial killer who murders in name of Isthar, an Egyptian goddess. The films depicts the homicides in detail, paying attention to blood and visceras. In spite of fantasy narration, with unreal scenes, the serial killer is portrayed as an unscrupulous man, who desists before nothing. Additionally, there is a trilogy composed of The Touch of Her Flesh, The Curse of Her Flesh and The Kiss of Her Flesh (1967, 1968, 1968), whose protagonist is Richard Jenning, a serial killer of women. The marriage of Roberta and Michael Findlay focuses on a killing spree owing to Jenning’s hatred of promiscuous women in general. In a certain way, this subject, the sexual killings will not be left in this kind of movies, because of most of the victims in real life were women and this fact was one of the most disturbing. Besides almost all movies have had as fundamental plot the torture, rape, killing... of women due to past traumas of serial killers.
When censorship disappeared, American movies explored violence and sex and the human monster settled as an enduring protagonist in Horror genre. After Night of Living Dead ‘s premiere (George A. Romero, 1968), Horror genre became one of the main genres which utilized serial killer figure in several ways. The reasons were the box office, on the one hand, and the possibility of creating stories with freedom, on the other. Besides this decade led to the highlight of low budget and the independent movies thanks to the Super 8mm format with a much cheaper camera.
On the one hand, the real serial killers continued having the leading role in some movies such as The Zodiac Killer (Tom Hanson, 1971) or Deranged (Jeff Gillen, Allan Ormsby, 1974) among others. Regarding this element, there was a real case which had a great influence on Horror: the Manson Family. Not only did it profoundly shake people, but also the Horror genre used the Family to produce very disgusting and bloody movies: I drink your blood (David E. Durston, 1970), The Cult aka. The Manson Massacre (Kentucky Jones, 1971), Snuff (Michael Findlay, Roberta Findlay, 1976), etc. Regarding the last movie I mentioned, there were many rumors about Snuff because it was thought that the murderers which showcased were real, but it was only advertising. Meanwhile, many movies with this human monster, telling the same story, were released during the decade such as Three on a Meathook (William Girdler, 1973), The Gore Gore Girls (Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1972), The Driller Killer (Abel Ferrara, 1979). Even though there was a movie which brought face to face two serial killers in The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid row Slasher (Ray Dennis Steckler, 1979). Criminally Insane aka. Crazy Fat Ethel (Nick Millard, 1975) presents us with a crazy mad fat lady who kills compulsively.
In the middle of this amount of B movies, it is important to point out several movies which have been classified within the American Gothic Fiction. According to Antonio J. Navarro, it is a typical American horror cinema set between 1968 and 1980, mainly composed of low budget-films, which deal with contemporary themes such as family disintegration, confrontation of civilization and savagery, sordid approaches to traditional topics like vampirism, Satanism, cannibalism, etc. Serial killers are other very common subjects in these movies, but they are usually portrayed from a critical perspective. One of these motion pictures is The Last House on the Left (Wes Craven, 1972), where two teenage girls, Mari and Phyllis, are raped, tortured and murdered by a bunch of bastards, the Stillos. When both girls are killed, the Stillos end up in Mari’s family house. Her family, the Collingwoods, take revenge killing Stillos violently. Instead of giving a simplistic view, Craven uses this story, based on a Bergman film, to analyze his own society and to criticize it. Additionally, the depiction of the Stillos is more complex, because they regret the killing spree displaying their human nature. For its part, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) is about a trip of five teenagers who go to the grandparent’s house of Sally and Franklin. There they come across a family of cannibals, who kill them one by one. In this case, the cannibalism is explained as the only way to survive for this family. Hooper throws the abandoned Americans in the audience’s face and tells a nihilistic and apocalyptic tale.
The end of the decade is marked by Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978), a serial killer horror movie, which introduced supernatural elements in the serial killer. Michael Myer wears a mask, with which his humankind vanished This movie was considered more moralistic because the victims were principally teenage girls who have sexual relations and take drugs. With this premise, whose antecedent is found in a Canadian film entitled Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974), the Slasher subgenre was born. According to horror-extreme, Slasher movies “involves a number of rebellious teenagers either unintentionally trapped or intentionally trespassing in an isolated setting while being creatively murdered by an unknown psychopath. The psycho will usually have a defined method of murder and gimmick such as a mask or preferred weapon. Often the reason for the killers instability is the result of a traumatic past event and the victims are usually connected to this event in various degrees of vagueness. A final surviving heroine is a common plot device (the final girl). There is often one final scare to remind us that it might not all be over and leave open the possibility of a sequel”. The serial killer settled as another essential monster but further removed from the reality. The mask and the supernatural traits turned the serial killer into a kind of killing machine who does not need to be understood. After Halloween the eighties saw the birth of large number of Slasher movies, but in this decade we find some examples such as The Driller Killer.
The eighties started with Friday the 13th (Sean S. Cunnigham, 1980) premiere, which led to the rise of Slasher. Imitating the plot structure of Halloween, this movie presents a very similar story. From that moment, countless titles for cinema or video were released: The Burning (Tony Maylam, 1981), Class Reunion (Michael miller, 1982), Silent Night, Deadly Night (Charlie E. Sellier Jr., 1984), April Fool’s Day (Fred Walton, 1986), Cheerleader Camp (John Quinn, 1988), etc. That way, the multiplication of the Slasher movies came accompanied by the establishment of sagas, looking forward to making profitable Horror movies. For that reason, Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre had their own sequels. But not only this movies from the seventies, but also almost all movies which were produced in this decade such as Friday the 13th, the Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Holden Jones, 1982) among others.
Furthermore, this decade is important because it engendered several of the most important modern horror monsters. One of them was Jason, the monster of the franchise Friday the 13th and the other was Freddy Krueger. Wes Craven made A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984, but unlike other monsters, Freddy Krueger acts in the dream world and he does not wear a mask, but has his burnt face instead. He is not very strong but he is really intelligent, he speaks and has a cutting humor. Finally, he belongs to the middle class like his victims, and before dying, he coexisted with other members of this class as a normal neighbor.
To sum up, there were so many movies that the saturation resulted in a large amount of very bad movies where we can find Horror Comedies even such as Student Bodies (Michael Rose, Michael Ritchie, 1981), Motel Hell (Kevin Connor, 1980), Microwave Massacre (Wayne Berwick, 1983), etc.
Although there was another trend which had its origins in the previous decade. The Major Studios found out Horror could be a profitable genre some independent horror movies were released and had a high box office, but the most striking was Night of the Living Dead, with a budget of about 114.000 $ and a estimated rental of 1.600.000 $ only in the USA. For that reason, the majors decided to bet on The exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) and Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1974), both of them were very successful. Now it was when several directors explored this genre, offering daring proposals like Stanley Kubrick (The Shinning, 1980). Brian De Palma was another director who had gone in depth in Horror genre with movies like Sisters (1973) or Carrie (1976). Dressed to Kill (1980) was his own homage to the great master of Horror, Alfred Hitchcock and his film Psycho. Transvestites, childish and sexual traumas, serial murders on women and a serial killer were the main elements that we can find in this film. Despite being accused of being misogynistic, De Palma proposes a detailed realistic portrait of a serial killer who is handsome, hard working and goes unnoticed.
Finally, there is a very important movie, produced in 1986 though released in 1990, Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer. John McNaughton created this motion picture, based on Henry Lee Lucas, with another gaze. From the independent point of view, the director decides to unmask the killer (this was not the first time since Halloween) and become him in a killing machine who is moving around the country. This idea connects with the general idea of people about serial killers, as demonstrated in the case of this murder. Henry is portrayed as a handsome and polite man, who can treat a woman well, as we can see with Otis’ sister, but being totally heartless in other situations instead.
This is the last part of this article because the 11-S changed everything and made an impression so intense that the Horror genre after that date deserves another article. Firstly, most sagas which had begun in the previous decade finished up: Freddy Krueger’s franchise (Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Wes Craven, 1994), Leatherface’s (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The New Generation, Kim Henkel, 1995), Jason’s (Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Adam Marcus, 1993) and Michael Myer’s (Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, Steve Miner, 1998). In its place, other new sagas started with new ideas. With Scream (1996), Wes Craven shook up the genre because the serial killer of this teen movie was the own teenagers, the protagonist’s boyfriend and his best friend. What Wes Craven proved with this was the need for the modernization of the genre. That way, as in real life, serial killers could be brats who murder for their own pleasure, even when they possess everything. Consequently, Scream was a model for other teen movies which followed its plot structure such as Urban Legends (Jamie Blanks, 1998) or I Know What You Did Last Summer (Jim Gillespie, 1997).
Finally, I would like to talk about three motion picture which changed the genre. All of them are influenced by the Postmodernism, that is to say, mix other genre features. The first I am going to talk is The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991), a film based on Thomas Harris’ homonymous novel. It is true that it is not a horror movie but the portrait of the serial killer is totally new, describing a very polite, intelligent, handsome, attractive serial killer who could be very dangerous if he was released. As with Craven, this movie does not offer a simplistic discourse, but Hannibal Lecter is able to have feelings for Clarice Starling and helps the police to catch Buffalo Bill and may need to kill simultaneously.
The second movie is Natural Born Killer (Oliver Stone, 1994), whose script was made by Quentin Tarantino. Neither does this film belong to horror genre straightforward, but it is a very good satire of the fascination which many people felt for the Serial Killer. Somehow this fascination was so big that they could see the dreadful acts of these sociopathic people. It is a quick film and the characters of Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, as Mickey and Mallory stand out, on one hand, and the parody of TV realities and how they have become serial killer superstars, on the other. But the most important thing for us is the idea that the reality and the fiction in a serial killer cannot be distinguished
The last film we are going to talk is American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000), based on Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel of the same name. This time, the serial killer takes a step further. Now he is a yuppie who commits murders due to tedium. With this idea, a new human being is born: a non-empathic man who is capable of doing everything not to be bored, where the social status is really important and because it gives you the freedom to do whatever you want without raising suspicion. This new world is selfish, anyone, even someone who can distinguish between evil and good, can kill anyone only for pleasure, without caring about others.
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