Serial Killer Celluloid

In 1993 on death row in Chester, Illinois, John Wayne Gacy said: “If you serve other people, it will come back to serve you.” A chilling quote from a man who used his trusted...

Societal shock gripped the Washington, D.C. area in October of 2002. Over the course of twenty days, ten people were shot and killed by a seemingly invisible sniper who emerged to murder randomly. It...

America’s never had a rosy image of Mexico, seeing it either from a flawed economic perspective— assuming everyone south of the border is poor— or from a social perspective tainted by nationalist rhetoric and...

Not long ago, Serial Killer Celluloid took a look at Joon-ho Bong’s Memories of Murder (2003)— a fantastic film about South Korean police’s first encounter with serial murder, which came with a steep learning...

Anybody who’s serious about appreciating film, and filmmakers, can admit that David Fincher— whether you like him or not— is one of the great contemporary directors in America. If anything, his style is so...

So much is made out of the lives of serial killers— the men who hunt, rape, torture, and kill. What about the men and women who chase them? How are their stories represented? Fictional...

In the city, people are often scared by serial and spree killers because of the anonymity involved— amongst a large population, a multiple murderer could be anybody, anywhere. In rural areas the fear strikes...

America’s all but resigned itself as a nation to being rocked every week or so by new gun massacres. People who’ve seen it as a worse steady decline than ever since Sandy Hook have...

Apart from the loss of lives, one of the saddest parts of any serial killer investigation is often realizing many of the victims were those in society most at risk, whether they were women,...

In 1990, Keith Hunter Jesperson would turn thirty-five years old. He had recently received two major blows to an already dangerously fragile ego. The first disappointment was getting rejected by the Royal Canadian Mounted...

It was July 6th of 1993 when Karla Homolka was convicted on two counts of manslaughter for her involvement in Paul Bernardo’s spree of abduction, rape, torture, and, eventually, three murders. Bernardo himself landed...

SCRIPTOPHOBIC NOTE: We don't normally do spoiler warnings, however The Clovehitch Killer is a recent release, so be warned! The Clovehitch Killer (2018) is a great film. It’s also a frustrating one for those who have...

During the mid-1980s, serial killers were already a staple of American media— everybody knew the names Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Ramirez and others, while murderers like Jeffrey Dahmer, the as of then...

We’re unsettled by anyone who kills another human being. The idea of taking a person’s life, to the vast majority of us, is morally revolting. Serial killers scare us worse because of the repetitive...

In the summer of 1977, New York City was suffering after a year of young people being murdered. An unknown man - a human monster - prowled the night, looking for couples alone in...

Gerard Johnson’s 2009 indie film Tony is about a meek Englishman living alone in a flat on a council housing estate and harbouring dark secrets. This unassuming man comes off initially as a depressing...

In North America, the name John Bunting isn’t particularly well known. But in Australia, his name continues to instil a sense of dread in those who were alive during his gruesome streak of murders,...

People love real stories about death, murder, and all varieties of human atrocities. This predilection for tragedy extends all the way back into the era of the Ancient Greek poets, right up to present...

Since the heyday of the big four - Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Chucky - slasher movie fans have continually searched for the next great villain. That’s not to say there haven’t...

When 10 Rillington Place was released in 1971 the disturbing sting of serial killer John Reginald Christie was still lingering in the United Kingdom’s social consciousness. Only five years prior, Timothy Evans - who...

What happens when a person’s psychopathy isn’t exactly definable as typical mental illness? What do we, as a society, do for and with these people? Between healthcare systems and the justice system, we expect...

In this week’s Serial Killer Celluloid, we’re going to cheat— just a little. Ed Gein isn’t classified as a serial killer. The man was a proper ghoul, having robbed and desecrated graves for some...

Sometimes art imitates life. Other times, life imitates art. Suddenly there’s no line between what is fiction and what constitutes reality. In August of 1990, life and the art of horror collided when five...

The name Aileen Wuornos conjures to most the image of a wild eyed, crazed woman who shouted profanities in court after being condemned to death for the killing of several men in Florida between...

Most people lie in order to get out of trouble. Even if it’s only a white lie, its purpose is usually to absolve the person telling it from responsibility or, more often than not,...