[Editorial] Films To Ruin Your Day: So You Really Think You Have a Serial Killer Obsession?

Artwork by Sludgework

When I was a kid I remember going to my friend’s house and finding a stack of books in their bathroom about real life serial killers. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be looking at them but I did anyway, and after just a few quick browses and skims of words, and I was hooked on the macabre element of serial killers. It wasn’t something I revisited for quite some time, because luckily my parents didn’t let me look at adult content. But as soon as I could start reading on Wikipedia all about different serial killers, there was something regarding the psychology of it all that really drew me in. 

I’m certainly not one of these weird people that send love letters to men in jail that have raped and slaughtered loads of women, but I always found myself so perplexed at how a human could possibly kill another and then spend hours upon hours hacking a body to pieces. It was the episode on Dennis Nilsen on the Casefile podcast that really stuck with me. Nilsen lured young men to his flat in London, where he would strangle them, sexually defile their corpses, and then spend hours gruelling away at dismembering the body and boiling organs on his stove to be flushed down the toilet…. Just the thought of that really fucked me up. So maybe that’s why I love watching horror films that are either based on real life serial killers or just nasty fictional ones. 

For quite some time, being this obsessed with serial killers was considered weird, like you wouldn’t just tell people you enjoyed reading about this stuff. But then for some reason (maybe it helped seeing Zac Efron play Ted Bundy…) it became cool to like serial killers, and every girl at school that called me a weirdo, suddenly had their fucking podcast about killers. So without further ado, here are just a few serial killer films that might ruin your day.

5. The Poughkeepsie Tapes 

This one isn’t based on anything real, but essentially when it comes to films about serial killers, there’s definitely elements that deep down we all know probably happened to someone. The Poughkeepsie Tapes 2007 is from John Erick Dowdle, and is presented in a documentary style so it feels like what we’re witnessing is real. It looks at the discovery of a collection of thousands upon thousands of tapes that showed the horrific torture and murder of women and men across Poughkeepsie. If you like found footage films, then this one is going to be up your street. It is pretty gruesome and very disturbing in places… There’s a scene where a woman basically gives birth to her dead husband’s decapitated head. Yep. 

4. Hounds of Love

Probably best to proceed with caution on this one but it is just really not very nice to sit through, but it is powerful and has some incredible performances. Hounds of Love is a 2016 film from Ben Young and loosely based on real life serial killing couple David and Catherine Birnie. What this film does so well is that it avoids becoming exploitative and manages to portray the devastating abuse of one victim in subtle ways - including a scene where we only hear a snippet of what is happening behind closed doors. This is a nasty film in its essence and leaves you wanting to have a cry, but it’s very well done and very emotional at times. 

3. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

Another film that is loosely based on some real life serial killers is John McNaughton’s 1986 film Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer which stars Michael Rooker who hasn’t starred in anything quite as dark as this since then. The film follows two killers, Henry and Otis, who are characterised by the real men Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole, who were also known as The Confession Killers. The film looks at the murders from the perspective of Henry, which means we often watch scenes unfold through Henry’s eyes which makes it even more horrible to sit through as we suddenly feel like we’re the ones committing these horrific crimes. 

2. The House That Jack Built

Love him or hate him, you can’t disagree that Lars Von Trier knows how to make controversial films that really causes debate amongst cinema lovers. The House That Jack Built isn’t based on a real story, but does look at society’s fascination with serial killers and how our attention on them is often the sole purpose they are seeking in their lives. Jack is played by Matt Dillon, who seems to perfect his role as the charismatic, OCD fuelled serial killer that depicts his life of murder through a series of events, culminating in his architectural masterpiece that truly shows his dark and depraved nature. 

1. Snowtown

People often grimace when I say that this one is a personal favourite of mine, which I understand but Justin Kurzel’s 2011 film Snowtown is one of the most distressing, upsetting but fantastic tellings of a real serial killer. The story follows John who ropes in young teenager Jamie to help him kill men in the neighbourhood that he deems as ‘peadophiles’, even though the truth was that most of these men were just homosexual. The tone throughout the film really captures the poverty, violence and brutality of the crimes that were carried out, but it never comes across as if it is capitalising on the story, more just trying to give people an understanding of what happened. Most people have said this is a film they would never watch more than once, and that will probably ring true for most viewers.

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