An Unfinished List of Serial Killer Movies (Stop Me Before I List Again)
- REAL KILLERS:
- 2 of a Kind: The Hillside Stranglers [Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono]
- 10 Rillington Place [John Reginald Halliday Christie]
- The Boston Strangler [Albert DeSalvo]
- Bundy: Deliberate Stranger [Ted Bundy]
- Citizen X [Andrei Chikatilo]
- Confessioms of a Serial Killer [Henry Lee Lucas]
- Dahmer [Jeffrey Dahmer]
- Deranged [Ed Gein]
- The Final Solution [Jack the Ripper]
- From Hell [Jack the Ripper]
- Gacy [John Wayne Gacy]
- Helter Skelter [Charles Manson]
- Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer [Henry Lee Lucas]
- Killer: A Journal of Murder [Carl Panzram]
- The Night Stalker [Richard Ramirez]
- Monster [Aileen Wuornos]
- Rampage [Richard Chase]
- The Secret Life of Jeffrey Dahmer [Jeffrey Dahmer]
- Summer of Sam [David Berkowitz]
- Ted Bundy [Ted Bundy]
- To Catch a Killer [John Wayne Gacy]
- FICTIONAL KILLERS:
- 10 to Midnight
- Along Came a Spider
- American Psycho
- Autopsy [1975 a.k.a. Macchie solari]
- Badlands
- Basic Instinct [1992]
- Black Widow
- Blood Work
- The Bone Collector
- The Cell
- Cherry Falls
- Clay Pigeons
- Copycat
- The Crimson Rivers
- Curdled
- Dirty Harry
- Dressed to Kill [1980]
- Eye of the Beholder
- The Eyes of Laura Mars
- Fear Dot Com
- Frailty
- Frenzy
- Frequency
- Hannibal
- Heathers
- Honeymoon Killers
- Hypnotic
- I Know What You Did Last Summer
- I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
- Kalifornia
- A Kiss Before Dying [1956]
- A Kiss Before Dying [1991]
- Kiss the Girls
- The Lodger [1927]
- M
- Man Bites Dog
- Manhunter
- Mindhunters
- The Minus Man
- Natural Born Killers
- Night of the Generals
- Night of the Hunter [1955]
- Pandora's Box
- Peeping Tom
- Psycho
- Red Dragon
- Red to Kill [1994 a.k.a. Ruo sha]
- Scream
- Scream 2
- Scream 3
- Sea of Love
- Secret Window [2004]
- Serial Mom
- Seven
- Shadow of a Doubt
- The Silence of the Lambs
- The Stendahl Syndrome
- Suspect Zero
- Switchback
- Taking Lives [2004]
- The Talented Mr Ripley
- Targets
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Trauma
- The Watcher
- What Have They Done to Solange? [1972]
- Who Saw Her Die? [1972]
This is a mere sampling of the truly appalling number of serial killer movies there are.
Suggestions are welcome, you sick puppy! - but no supernatural killers please.
At first this list had two sections: REAL KILLERS and FICTIONAL KILLERS, then I added a third section: INSPIRED BY REAL KILLERS, but since many, perhaps most, of the fictional stories are rumored to have been inspired by real cases, I have returned to a two section list: REAL KILLERS, which will list movies in which real killers are given their real names, and FICTIONAL KILLERS, which will list movies in which the killers have fictional names.
Was Alfred Hitchcock's THE LODGER [1927] the very first serial killer movie? Please tell me if you know of an older one.
Hitchcock made three other serial killer movies I can think of: Shadow of a Doubt, Psycho, and Frenzy.
The Ones From BadLands Real i think
I think you're right. Thanks. I should have remembered Badlands as I have praised it in other lists.
Didn't Woody Harrelson and Juliet Lewis also star in a version (Natural Born Killers) ?
Whoops - you already have it in the fictional section - but I believe it was based on the same true story as Badlands.
You've revealed a problem with my simple division of the list into real and fictional. So I've decided to add another category: Inspired by Real Killers (though I'm not totally happy with using the word 'inspired' in this connection).
Targets
Talented Mr. Ripley?
Stepfather
Sea of Love
Jack the Ripper
Felicia's Journey
Serial Mom
Honeymoon Killers
Muchos gracias. Especially for Talented Mr R.
Halloween.
Black Widow.
A Kiss Before Dying
10 to Midnight.
Dirty Harry.
Professor, does Halloween have a supernatural killer? I don't remember. I think he became supernatural in some of the sequels.
You could be right. Having watched the original, I inadvertantly (?) missed all the sequels so I cannot say, but I do agree that it's probably best to exclude supernatural serial killers (or aliens: Alien, Predator, Terminator etc - not on this list, or even this planet).
Fictional: Freddy Krugar From Nightmare on elm street
Thanks for the suggestion, but I won't be including any movies that have an explicit supernatural element.
"M" was loosely based on a real killer. That same killer also served as the inspiration for the film "Tenderness of the Wolves". And "The Honeymoon Killers" was based on two real murderers. These two later provided the inspiration for the Spanish film "Deep Crimson". And wasn't "Psycho" also inspired by Ed Gein?
We still have a ways to go here (we've barely touched upon Italian giallo yet), so here's some suggestions:
Deep Red
Taking Lives
Opera
Torso
Autopsy
Who Saw Her Die?
The Cat o' Nine Tails
Tenebrae
Perfect Blue
Happy Birthday to Me
My Bloody Valentine
Friday the 13th (parts 1 and 5 only)
Psycho II and III
Blowback
Ricochet
Dressed to Kill
The Untold Story
Red to Kill
The Case of the Bloody Iris
What Have They Done to Solange?
Prom Night
Terror Train
Bruiser
House of 1000 Corpses
Black Christmas
Ravenous
Parents
Sleepaway Camp 1, 2 and 3
Driller Killer
The Toolbox Murders
Secret Window
American Nightmare (2001)
Suburban Nightmare
Blood Feast
Blood Diner
The Gore-Gore Girls
The Gruesome Twosome
Color Me Blood Red
Tell Me Something
Broken Lizard's Club Dread
Killer Nerd
Bride of Killer Nerd
Thesis
Anatomy
Urban Legend
Suspended Animation
Eating Raoul
I have the vaguest of recollections that Texas Chainsaw Massacre was inspired by Ed Gein. Maybe it was Psycho too though.
Yowee! Thanks for the extra list :-) These'll keep me busy for a while.
Yes, M seems to have been based on the case of Peter Kurten (The Butcher of Dusseldorf, or some such).
I realise now that it was naive of me to add the "Inspired by Real killers" section of the list, since lots of the 'fictional killers' were inspired by real ones. I think I know how to fix things. I'm going to have only two sections. In the first will be movies that are explicitly about real killers and give the killers their real names (but also included here will be movies about real killers whose real names are unknown, e.g. Jack the Ripper). In the second section will be movies that have fictional killers or fictionally named killers (no matter how apparent it may be that they were based on real cases). We'll see how that goes.
"Killing isn't like smoking. You can stop."
Basic Instinct
Odysseus, abject apology for having ignored this suggestion for so long. I've put it on the list.
Jeez! I hadn't realized that Sharron Stone's famous 'crotch shot' was directed by that rascal Paul Verhoven.
Yes, I think it's strange that Lang's 'M' is often credited as the first serial killer movie, when The Lodger is such an obvious and certainly not obscure example.
I'm going to assume the "Stop Me Before I List Again" is a remnant because this is such an old list? My reply would be "Why on earth would I want to do that?"
luke, I did intend to reply to this before, but I got sidetracked and let it slip my mind.
The "Stop Me before I List Again" bit is an attempt at humour. The old cliche is that some killers want to be caught, and there's bound to be some old movie or tv show in which the killer scrawled the plea "Stop me before I kill again" in blood at his latest crime scene.
Um, I don't know why you think this is an old list; it isn't.
Ehhhh... yeah, nevermind.
Did I miss your point?
If it helps I kinda thought it was funny.
:?)
No. I started to explain why I thought your list was old (due to the title), but it was too long and complicated and unimportant to bother with. Your title and what you've said make complete sense now that you have explained it.
I've got one...Memento. :?)
Not for this list. Too atypical.
Ba humbug. :?)
OK, this may be really splitting hairs, but bear with me. According to the way the FBI classifies killers, I believe the killer in Targets to be a "spree killer" rather than a "serial killer." A serial killer must have a cool down period (usually of several days or weeks) in between some of the killings, while a spree killer goes beserk over an extended period of time (usually several hours but maybe days) and never psychologically cools down. Of course, this is a rather insignificant difference when dealing with multiple murders.
Do I read too many books by Profilers?
Johnny Waco
Hairs are often revealingly split, though the importance of a particular split might not be immediately apparent. No doubt the spree / serial distinction has psychological and criminological force. I don't know, however, that my humble list need be influenced.
Le Boucher (Chabrol)
Monsieur Hire (Leconte)
No Way to Treat a Lady (Smight)
+ perhaps - not seen it-
The Devil-Doll (Browning).
All 4 of these were suggested over a couple of years at our film society selection meetings by one guy. I only noticed the pattern at the 2nd meeting + then his resemblance to Monsieur Hire. A bit worrying.
I'd suggest Sudden Impact (1983).
Hey.
I was wondering if any of the movies listed here is the one I'm thinking of.
There's a serial killer who takes pictures of his victims' living rooms when they're not home, and later paints himself to blend in with the wall of the room, so that when the victim is home, he/she doesn't notice the killer.
Ring a bell, anyone? It's been a long time since I saw that movie. It may even be an episode of some series in the 90s..
When a Stranger Calls Back
Thanks for mopping that up :-)
Why go to all that trouble? - the painted killer, I mean.
What else is there for a poor Dutch Boy to do?
I have no idea... I've never seen the movie.
Just watched it: Memories of Murder
Memories of Nancy Allen in much better (by all reports) movies - yum!!! Seen De Palma's Dressed to Kill ?
Oh no, no. I don't mean the TV movie Memories of Murder starring Nancy Allen. The film I mean is a Korean flick from 2003, based on the real case of a serial Killer in South Korea in the mid-80s.
And nope, I haven't seen Dressed to Kill. Sounds good though. ;-)
The Korean flick sounds good too. I'll see if it's available where I live. Unless you advise against?
It's a fabulous film. A friend recommended it to me. I rented it, and it is really outstanding.
I decided that, with an IMDb rating of 8, it would be worth seeing. I rang my local Blockbuster, they had 2 copies, I got one this morning and I'll be watching it this evening. I'll get back to you about it tomorrow.
Okay, I've seen it and posted my comments here.
Excellent! I'm glad you liked it.
Yeah, I could start naming films (the Korean "Tell Me Something," the German "Tattoo," the domestic "Saw" and it's sequel), but like you said, there ARE such alarming numbers in this genre, I'd be here all day. However, if I must nitpick, I'd really say something like "I Know What You Did Last Summer" was more a slasher film that an out-and-out serial killer film. 'Just a thought. Otherwise, fine list.
Anamorph - William Dafoe - pretty sick too!
norman bates of psycho, leatherface of texas chainsaw massacre and jame gumb/buffalo bill from silence of the lambs are all influenced by real life serial killer ed gein.
norman bates of psycho, leatherface of texas chainsaw massacre and jame gumb/buffalo bill from silence of the lambs are all influenced by real life serial killer ed gein.