Here is a curated selection of films that perfectly embody the bold and uncompromising exploration of the serial killer figure. Freed from the commercial constraints and reassuring narrative formulas of the Hollywood system, independent cinema ventures into the darkest corners of the human psyche, offering portraits that aim not to entertain, but to disturb, question, and understand. These films do not present us with charismatic supervillains or evil geniuses, but with broken, pathetic men (and women), products of trauma, social isolation, or a desolate banality.
The creative freedom of auteur thrillers allows for experimentation with the cinematic language itself. A scarce budget, rather than a limitation, becomes a strength: it forces directors to innovate, to generate terror not with spectacle, but with psychological tension, with an oppressive sound design, with cinematography that captures the squalor of the soul. Independence is not just a matter of production, but a declaration of intent: to keep horror dangerous, raw, and painfully honest.
The works that follow offer no easy answers or comforting catharsis. On the contrary, they force us to hold our gaze on the horror, to question our fascination with violence, and to recognize the evil that can hide behind the most ordinary facade. This is the cinema that does not fear to look into the abyss, and that challenges us to do the same.
Definition of Serial Killer
A serial killer is an individual who kills 3 or more individuals, usually for psychological gratification, with the murders taking place over a period of more than a month and with a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a limit of three murders, others expand it to four or minimize it to two.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says serial killers’ motives can include anger, thrill seeking, financial gain, and attention seeking. Often the FBI focuses on a particular pattern that serial killers follow. Based on this pattern, the killer will provide key clues to be found.
Although a serial killer is a classification that differs from that of a mass killer, mass killer, or contract killer, there are conceptual overlaps between them. There are some debates about certain requirements for each classification.
Meaning of the term Serial Killer
The English term and the idea of serial killer are typically attributed to former FBI Special Representative Robert Ressler, who used the term serial murder in 1974 at a lecture at the Police Staff Academy in the UK. . Writer Ann Rule argues in her 2004 book Kiss Me, Kill Me, that the term serial killer is attributed to LAPD investigator Pierce Brooks, who developed the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program in 1985.
The termthe German concept was coined by criminologist Ernst Gennat, who described Peter Kürten as a Serienmörder (“serial killer”) in his article “Die Düsseldorfer Sexualverbrechen” (1930). In his book, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (2004), criminal justice historian Peter Vronsky notes that while Ressler may have coined the English term “serial homicide” within the law in 1974, the term serial killer appears in John Brophy’s book
The Meaning of Murder
There is the mass killer, or what is called the “serial” killer, who could be stimulated by greed, like insurance policy, or lust for power, like the Medici of Renaissance Italy, or Landru, the “bluebeard” of the First World War, who killed several spouses after taking their money.
In his most current research study, Vronsky states that the term serial murder initially came into more comprehensive popular American use when it was published in the New York Times in the spring of 1981 to explain Atlanta serial killer Wayne Williams. Subsequently, throughout the 1980s, the term was repeated in the pages of the New York Times, one of the major national newspapers in the United States, on 233 events. By the late 1990s, the use of the term had actually increased to 2,514 articles.
When discussing serial killers, researchers typically use “three or more murders” as a standard, considering it sufficient to offer a pattern without being restrictive. Regardless of the number of murders, they must have actually been committed at different times and in various places. The absence of a significant pause between murders highlights the distinction between a killer and a serial killer. Cases of sequential homicides over periods of weeks or months with no apparent “period of reflection” or “return to normal” have actually led some professionals to identify a crossbreed category called a “spree-serial killer.
In Controversial Issues in Criminology, Fuller and Hickey write that “the aspect of time included among murderous acts is primary in the differentiation of mass murderers, serial and insane,” later elaborating that insane killers “commit the crimes in weeks or weeks. days “while” murder techniques as well as types of victims vary. Andrew Cunanan is mentioned as an example of murder, while Charles Whitman is reported for mass murder, as is Jeffrey Dahmer for serial murder.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI) defines serial murder as “a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by a killer acting alone.” In 2005, the FBI hosted a multidisciplinary symposium at San Antonio, Texas, which brought together 135 serial homicide experts from a variety of fields and industries with the goal of identifying commonalities in knowledge about serial homicide. He also established a definition of serial murder that FBI investigators broadly accept as standard: “The killing of two or more victims by the same offender in separate events.
Serial killer in history
Juhani Aataminpoika, a Finnish serial also called “Kerpeikkari” (meaning “executioner”), was among one of the most terrible serial killers of the 19th century, killing up to 12 people in 1849 in 5 weeks before to be caught. Criminologists tell of serial killers throughout history. Some sources say tales such as those about vampires and werewolves were influenced by medieval serial killers.
Liu Pengli in China, grandson of Emperor Han Jing, was made prince of Jidong in the sixth year of Jing’s reign (144 BC). According to the Chinese historian Sima Qian, he would surely “go out on expeditions with 20 or 30 servants or with young people who escaped the law, killed people and took their belongings as if it were a sport. Although many learned of these murders, it was not until the 29th year of his reign that the boy was reported. Eventually, it turned out that he had killed around 100 people. Court officials demanded that Liu Pengli be executed; however, the emperor could not have his nephew eliminated, so Liu Pengli was acquitted.
In the 15th century, Gilles de Rais, one of the richest men in Europe and former companion in arms of Joan of Arc, allegedly assaulted and sexually killed peasant children, mainly boys, whom he had kidnapped from surrounding villages and had brought to his castle. Her victims are estimated to be between 140 and 800.
The Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory, born into one of the wealthiest families in Transylvania, allegedly wounded and killed up to 650 women and even young women before her arrest in 1610 Members of the Thuggee cult in India may have killed a million people between 1740 and 1840. Thug Behram, a cult member, may have killed up to 931 victims.
In his 1886 book, Psychopathia Sexualis, psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing noted a situation of a serial killer in the 1870s, a Frenchman named Eusebius Pieydagnelle who had a fixation on sex and blood. He admitted killing six people.
The never-caught killer Jack the Ripper, who has been called the first contemporary serial killer, killed at least five women in London in 1888. He was the subject of a major manhunt, during which many contemporary criminal investigative techniques were created. A large team of police officers carried out house-to-house investigations, clues were collected and suspects were located and tracked down. Police cosmetic surgeon Thomas Bond put together one of the first accounts of the serial killer’s personality.
While not the first serial killer in history, the Jack the Ripper story was the first to produce a worldwide media craze. The dramatic murders of economically destitute women in the middle of London have drawn the attention of the media on the circumstances of the city and have also gained media coverage around the world. Jack the Ripper has also been called one of the most famous serial killers of all time, and his story has spawned hundreds of concepts about his identification and many works of fiction.
HH Holmes was one of the first documented modern serial killers in the United States, responsible for the deaths of at least nine victims in the early 1890s. At the same time, in France, Joseph Vacher became known as “The French Ripper” after killing and maiming 11 children and women. He was executed in 1898 after confessing his crimes. Most of the serial killers documented in the 20th century come from the United States.
Recent Serial Killers
The serial murder phenomenon in the United States was particularly popular from 1970 to 2000, which has been described as the “golden age of serial murder”. The variety of serial killers in the country peaked in 1989. The source of this spike in serial killings has actually been attributed to urbanization, which places people close and anonymous. Mike Aamodt, a teacher at Radford University in Virginia, associates the decrease in serial killings with much less constant use of probation, greater forensic innovation, and even people behaving much more meticulously.
Psychological characteristics of serial killers
Serial killers can exhibit varying degrees of mental illness or psychopathy, which could contribute to their murderous actions. For example, someone who is mentally ill might have psychotic fits that lead him to think that he is a different individual or that he is being forced to kill by other entities. Psychopathic behavior consistent with traits common to some serial killers includes feeling seeking, lack of remorse or guilt, impulsiveness, need for control, and predatory behavior. Psychopaths can seem “normal” and often quite charming, a state of adjustment that psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley called the “mask of sanity.
They were usually mentally, physically, or sexually abused by a family member. Serial killers are more likely to be affected by fetishism or necrophilia, which are paraphilias that involve a strong tendency to experience the object of erotic interest almost as if it were a physical representation of the body. Individuals engage in paraphilias which are organized along a continuum; participating in various levels of fantasy, perhaps focusing on parts of the body, symbolic objects that act as physical extensions of the body, or on the anatomical physicality of the human body; in particular with regard to its internal parts and sexual organs.
Many are fascinated by fire. They are associated with sadistic activity; especially in childhood psychologies that have not reached sex-linked maturity, this aspect could take on the torture of pets. More than 60 percent, or simply a large proportion, wetted their beds after age 12. As young people they were often harassed or marginalized by others.
For example, Henry Lee Lucas was mocked as a child and later cited the mass rejection of his peers as a reason for his hatred of everyone. Kenneth Bianchi was teased as a child for urinating in his pants, and as a teenager he was neglected by his peers.
Some have been involved in petty criminal activities, such as fraud, burglary, vandalism or similar offenses. They often have difficulty finding work and tend to do menial jobs. Other sources say they often come from unstable families.
Research studies have recommended that serial killers typically have ordinary or average intelligence, although they are often seen as having above-average IQs. A 202 IQ sample of serial killers had an average intelligence of 89.
There are exceptions to these criteria. For example, Harold Shipman was a general practitioner. He was a point of reference for the local community; he also won an award as an expert for an asthma center for young people, as well as being interviewed by Granada Television’s World in Action on ITV. Dennis Nilsen was a former soldier-turned-civil servant and trade unionist by profession who had no criminal record at the time of his detention.
Neither had shown the telltale signs of the serial killer. Vlado Taneski, a crime reporter, was caught after a series of articles he wrote suggested he had actually killed people. Russell Williams was a respected and successful colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force, convicted of killing 2 women, as well as episodes of fetishism and rape.
Family Problems
Many serial killers actually faced similar problems during childhood development. Hickey’s model of trauma control describes how early childhood trauma can predispose the child to deviant habits in adulthood; the child’s environment, his parents or society, is the main variable in understanding whether the child’s habits turn into homicidal activity or not.
Family, or lack thereof, is one of the main characteristics of a child’s growth because it is what the child can regularly identify with. The serial killer is no different than any other person who is asked to seek permission from mom and dad, sexual partners or others.” This authorization requirement is what affects children in trying to establish social relationships with their family and peers.
Wilson and Seaman (1990) conducted a study of incarcerated serial killers, and what they concluded was one of the most important additions to their business. Mostly all of the serial killers in the study had experienced some kind of environmental problem during their youth, such as a house destroyed due to separation, or a lack of parents to educate the young man. Nearly fifty percent of serial killers had experienced some sort of physical or sexual abuse, and even more of them had actually experienced emotional neglect.
When a parent has a drug or alcohol problem, the focus in the home is on the parents rather than the child. Hickey’s trauma control model supports how parental abandonment can facilitate deviant behavior, especially if the child sees substance abuse. If a child receives no support from anyone, they are unlikely to recover from the traumatic event in a positive way.
Serial Killer Fantasy
Kids who don’t have the power to handle the mistreatment they suffer from time to time create a new reality they can escape to. This new world becomes the fantasy they are in control of and also enters their daily existence. In this dream world, their psychological growth is blocked. According to Garrison (1996), “the child ends up being sociopathic due to the fact that the normal advancement of the ideas of right as well as wrong and compassion towards others are delayed because the emotional and social growth of the child occurs at the time. within his self-indulgent fantasies.
An individual cannot do anything wrong in his own world, just as the pain of others is irrelevant when the purpose of the dream world is to satisfy someone’s needs “(Garrison, 1996). The boundaries between dream and reality are lost and fantasies focus on control, sexual activity, physical violence, which at some point lead to murder. The dream can realize the main passage of a dissociative state, which, in the words of Stephen Giannangelo, “allows the serial killer to leave the stream of consciousness for what is, for him, a better place.
Criminologist Jose Sanchez reports, “The young criminal you see today is more detached from his victim, more ready to hurt or kill. Lorenzo Carcaterra, author of Gangster (2001), explains how potential criminals are labeled by society, which can then lead their offspring to similarly develop through the cycle of violence. Serial killers’ ability to appreciate the mental life of others is severely impaired, presumably leading to their dehumanization of others.
Could be considered a cognitive deficiency relating to the ability to do clear distinctions between other individuals and inanimate things. For these people, objects can show animistic or humanistic power while individuals are seen as objects. Serial killer Ted Bundy has stated that the media violence and even porn had actually increased and heightened her need to engage in murder, although this statement was made during her desperate attempts to avoid her death penalty. There are exceptions to the typical serial killer patterns, as in the case of Dennis Rader, who was a loving family man as well as the leader of his church.
Serial Killer Classification
The FBI’s Crime Classification Manual places serial killers into three groups: organized, disordered, and mixed. Some killers go from being organized to disorganized as their killings continue, such as when it comes to psychological failure from avoiding capture, or vice versa, such as when an already chaotic killer determines one or more particular aspects of the act of killing as their own. source of satisfaction and also establishes a modus operandi.
Organized serial killers often prepare their crimes carefully, usually by kidnapping victims, eliminating them in one place, and getting rid of them in another. Others specifically target street women, who will most likely happily go with a complete stranger. These serial killers maintain a high level of control at the crime scene and usually also have a strong track record that allows them to eliminate their own tracks, such as burying the body or throwing it in a river. as if it were all a big project they closely follow their crimes in the media and are often proud of their actions.
Among serial killers, those of this type, in case of capture, could be described by acquaintances as kind and are unlikely to harm anyone. Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy are examples of organized serial killers. In general, organized serial killers’ IQs tend to be normal, averaging 98.7.
Messy serial killers are normally much more spontaneous, usually dedicating their murders with a random weapon available at the time, and generally don’t attempt to hide the body. They are likely to be unemployed, lonely, or both, with very few friends. They usually end up having a history of mental disorder, and their modus operandi or absence of it is typically characterized by too much physical violence and occasionally by necrophilia or sexual assault. Chaotic serial killers have been found to have a low average IQ compared to organized serial killers, at 89.4. Mixed serial killers, with organized and even chaotic traits, have an ordinary IQ of 100.
Serial Killer Doctors
Some individuals with a pathological interest in the power of life and death have a tendency to be drawn into clinical careers or getting a job such. These types of criminals are often described as “angels of fate” or angels of mercy. The doctor will kill his patient for money, for a sadistic sense of pleasure, for the belief that they are “relieving” the client’s pain, or simply “for the fact that they can.
Arguably one of the most prolific of these serial killers was British physician Harold Shipman. Another serial killer was nurse Jane Toppan, who confessed during her murder trial that she was sexually aroused by death. He would surely have provided a mixture of medicines to the people he selected as his targets, looked after them on the bed, and held them close to his body as they died.
Another professional medical serial killer is Genene Jones. He is believed to have killed 11 to 46 infants and children while working at Bexar County Medical Center Hospital in San Antonio, Texas, United States. A similar case occurred in Britain in 1991, where nurse Beverley Allitt killed four children in the hospital where she worked, attempted to kill three more and injured six more over the course of two months. A 21st century example is Canadian nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer who killed elderly people in the retirement home where she worked.
Must See Serial Killer Movies
M (1931)
Masterpiece of Fritz Lang , considered one of the founders of the noir genre that was successful in Hollywood in the 1940s, is inspired by the heinous crimes committed in Germany in the 1920s by Fritz Haarmann and Peter Kürten.
The city is terrified of a child killer, and the police cannot find any trace. The criminal organizations have continuous problems with the raids of the police and decide to hunt down the monster on their own, managing to discover a clue: the “monster” whistles a macabre motive in approaching its victims.
The Driller Killer (1979)
The artist Reno Miller (Abel Ferrara) and his girlfriend Carol enter a church where a tramp approaches who wants to talk to the artist, but Reno and Carol, frightened, run away. Reno comes home and finds a big electricity bill, a phone bill, and can’t afford to pay the rent. He shares an apartment with Carol and her drug addict lover Pamela in a run-down New York neighborhood. Reno decides to go to the gallery owner Dalton and ask him for an advance for his next painting, but Dalton replies that he first wants to see the painting and then eventually buy it.
Deranged (1974)
Ezra Cobb helps run a farm in the rural Midwest with his elderly mother, Amanda, a spiritual fanatic who indoctrinated him considering he hates women. Amanda dies of a prolonged health problem and Ezra retires. Almost a year after his death, he has acoustic hallucinations that force him to exhume his mother. One night he goes to her and exhumes her decaying body, bringing it back to her house where he patches it up using the discarded fish skin and wax. Deranged is inspired by the story of Ed Gein and the shocking realism of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, released the same year, and is a rather transgressive and extreme film. Deranged becomes disgusting, a universe where there is no reason or purpose for evil.
A vision curated by a filmmaker, not an algorithm
In this video I explain our vision
Maniac (2012)
An excellent reinterpretation of the horror film 1980 exploitation. Although you practically never see Wood’s face, as the entire film is recorded from the killer’s perspective. Instead, the audience hears the background noise of his mental chaos as he mumbles to himself and follows his victims.
Be warned: Maniac’s violence is hard to keep an eye on even for seasoned horror veterans, and the continued POV filming of the point of view of killer immediately makes one feel guilty about the identification he creates with the killer. Some will call it excessively gratuitous in terms of cruelty, yet the film is so well crafted that it’s hard to resist criticism. With a rotating, Carpenter-style synth soundtrack and classic / opera songs.
Dementia 13
Horror, Thriller, by Francis Ford Coppola, United States, 1963.
Francis Ford Coppola's debut film produced at low cost by Roger Corman, who wanted a film on the model of low budget Psycho with gothic atmospheres and heinous crimes. The Haloran family gathers in their Irish castle to commemorate the untimely death of little Kathleen, who drowned seven years earlier. Mysterious events begin to occur, such as the apparitions of the dead child, and a killer armed with an ax roams the place.
LANGUAGE: english
SUBTITLES: italian
Tenebrae
If I wrote a horror book and its publication influenced a daily psychopath a to carry out their own ultraviolent killing spree, would you take that as a compliment? Perhaps this is not the investigation that Dario Argento seeks in his well-known 1982 crime film Tenebrae, but the story recalls an old saying in particular about imitation and flattery: the American author Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) goes to Italy to advertise his new book and also discovers that there is a serial killer on the loose, encouraged by his novel to commit murders. It must be very nice for Neal, not so much for the killer’s victims.
The film stages rivers of blood to drench the scene in red due to Argento’s indulgences as a director. It’s not that Argento condones murder or something that crazy; he is more than willing to confess his hopeless fixation on depicting murder on screen.
Manhunter (1986)
The aesthetic appeal of Manhunter a little excessive for the tastes of the reference market in the mid-1980s, more than 30 years later it represents a film released in time, a cinematic work of a distant decade but unique and full of meanings, as well as extraordinarily refined that still seems to hide the feeling of fear within it. The first of several adaptations of Thomas Harris’s books, Manhunter linked dream images to a criminal drama, trying to illustrate the traumatic emotional experience of being an FBI agent.
All the while, Michael Mann focuses on the serial killer, Francis Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan), the so-called “Tooth Fairy”, who lives in every scene with the alleged guarantee to get away with it. Supported by Dante Spinotti’s photography drawing shadows as if he were making a detective thriller, in Manhunter Mann discovered a balance between detective film and abstract violence. Manhunter acts in a similar way, getting stronger the more you look at him.
Deep Red
Deep Red is one of those films that could not have been made by any other person – Mario Bava may have tried, but his would not have the soundtrack of the collaborators of Argento Goblin, nor the eccentric shooting work with which we ask ourselves if we are watching the POV of the killer or not. Argento has a real eye for what is literally baffling to see: he somehow takes scenes that are “fundamental” to creating fear and makes them much more unpleasant than you might think.
Blood and Black Lace (1964)
Best film alongside 1974’s Black Christmas for being the first to bring all the components together in what is undoubtedly a “slasher film. However, Mario Bava’s 1964 film is so close to the genre that it almost justifies the title of the first “true” slasher. Blood and Black Lace is a decidedly adorable and superb movie. The story is a mixture of murder and exploitation, with a group of women followed by a strange attacker whose face is covered in a bulletproof mask. It is an image that immediately became famous and left its mark in an all-Italian style, codifying the figure of the murderer, from the black gloves to the mask itself. Numerous have tried to imitate his style.
Halloween
Horror, by John Carpenter, United States, 1978.
An independent film shot on a very small budget, it grossed over $ 80 million worldwide at the time. It is the most successful slasher movie and one of the 5 most profitable films in the history of cinema, which has become a cult with countless sequels and reboots. Carpenter describes the remote American province in an extraordinary way and raises the tension for over an hour, without anything happening, with a linear and effective direction, and with hypnotic music created by himself. A brilliant director who manages, with a few simple elements and a small production, to create a horror destined to remain in the worldwide cinematic imagination.
LANGUAGE: English
SUBTITLES: Spanish, French, German, Portuguese
Male Bites Dog (1992)
Man Bites Dog represents without batting an eyelid a serial murderer in his daily banality, victims ranging from children to the elderly to a woman raped in a group whose corpse is subsequently photographed with her bowels pouring out. all over the table on which she was violated.
Shot as a mockumentary, Man Bites Dog explores distressing dimensions to portray murder dilemmas in the vilest way possible, complementing the hesitation of the film crew recording such fears . The gripping grief shared by the documentary director (Rémy Belvaux) as he realizes what it really means to make a documentary about a serial killer, becoming more and more complicit in the murders as the film unfolds, explicitly indicates our willingness as viewers to tolerate horrors represented.
However, we react viscerally as the film uncovers real criminal activity as a commodity of popular culture and truth TV as well. The protagonist Benoit (Benoît Poelvoorde) is an incredibly intelligent social derelict besieged by xenophobia and misogyny, providing countless neuroses to discover behind his psychopathy and murderous madness, which he treats as a legitimate work, a professional job. The director is particularly concerned about the ways we watch a movie like Man Bites Dog, worried far less about the ostentatious and comical killing, suggesting that the real fault lies in normalizing physical violence and hatred.
Eyes Without a Face
Eyes Without a Face by Georges Franju, a cold, poetic and at the same time made with love film, about a woman and her mad scientist /, a serial killer who simply wants to kidnap girls who share his facial attributes in hopes of grafting their skin onto his disfigured face. Eyes Without a Face has a nerve-wracking, intimate and wicked style as le tend to be horror stories longer lasting meatyIf Franju manages to make most of the story count for this, so does Scob, whose eyes are the best special effect in the film’s arsenal. His is an interpretation that comes from the spirit.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Inspired by the life of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, along with his partner Otis Toole. Henry is a truly scary movie – you feel dirty just watching it, from the dirt-encrusted streets to the unsavory characters that prey on neighborhood women on the streets. Some of the scenes, such as the “mansion video clip” as Henry and Otis torture an entire family, have given the film an infamous reputation, even among horror followers, as a merciless glimpse into the disturbing nature of the banality of evil.
I Saw the Devil
I Saw the Devil is a brutal South Korean artwork from director Kim Ji-woon, who was also the basis of the greatest horror film South KoreanIt is an absolutely stunning film, about a man seeking revenge at all costs after the murder of his partner by a psychopath. Interesting how the “protagonist” of the film enjoys looking for the psychopath, incorporating a tracker into the killer that allows him to appear repeatedly, tormenting him in the unconscious and then release it again for further torment.
Silent night, bloody night
Horror, by Theodore Gershuny, United States, 1972.
1972 American Slasher, is a forerunner horror genre several years before Carpenter's Halloween, with a complex script and first person shooting of the killer, which inspired many subsequent films. Its originality and its narration are what manage to make it a small and little known pearl of the genre. A series of murders in a small New England town on Christmas Eve after a man inherits a family estate that was once a madhouse. Many of the cast and crew members were former Warhol superstars: Mary Woronov, Ondine, Candy Darling, Kristen Steen, Tally Brown, Lewis Love, director Jack Smith, and graduate Susan Rothenberg.
LANGUAGE: english
SUBTITLES: italian, french, spanish
Memoirs of a Murder
Based on South Korea’s first serial killer, this is Bong Joon-Ho. The tension arises from the confrontation between a country investigator and his metropolitan equivalent sent to speed up the investigation, which he constantly thwarts due to irrational apprehensions. One uses fists, the other coroners, and both also function as social archetypes whose actions take place against the backdrop of military violence of the mid-1980s. Murder is also not without laughter, which are both insightful and cruel.
The Honeymoon Killers (1969)
The Honeymoon Killers is a 1970s American crime film created and directed by Leonard Kastle. The story follows a gloomy and obese nurse who is attracted to a charlatan, with whom she begins a series of murders of single women. The film was inspired by the true story of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, the infamous “lonely heart killers” of the 1940s. Filmed largely in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, production of The Honeymoon Killers began with Martin Scorsese as the selected director. Launched in the early 1970s, the film was highly regarded especially for its realistic look. The Honeymoon Killers has become a cult film and has even been called his “favorite American film” by François Truffaut.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
One of the horror movie ever released, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, based on the infamous Wisconsin serial Ed Gein, features the menacing Leatherface, the legendary chainsaw-wielding killer wearing a mask made of human skin, whose sadism is only overshadowed from the introduction of his cannibal family with whom he lives in a dilapidated house in the middle of a Texas wilderness. The brothers are cannibals while the grandfather drinks blood and also models furniture with the bones of the victims. However, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Could is also a film about the underground anxiety of a post-Vietnam American rural population.
Peeping Tom
From a certain point of view, Peeping Tom ‘s Michael Powell is a meticulous, humane and thoughtful film about the emotional impulses that guide the process of making a film. It is a slasher film about a serial killer-documentary maker who kills people with the tripod of his camera. (The tripod has a blade on it.) Firstly, Peeping Tom was considered rather questionable for a time.
Films about women at risk have a means to strike the nerves of their audience and Peeping Tom takes this method to the extreme, giving its list of future victims little space to catch their breath as Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) approaches them, capturing their growing fear by the second as they realize their impending doom. It is a difficult film to endure, as would be any film about a psychopath with a habit of killing women, however it is also detailed, informative, perfectly crafted and even wonderfully considered.
The cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Horror, fantasy, by Robert Wiene, Germany, 1920.
The symbolic film of cinematic expressionism. Francis tells a story to a man: in 1830, in a small town, a guy named Caligari, plays the barker at the fair to present the attraction of him, a sleepwalker that he holds under hypnosis in a coffin. The doctor argues that the sleepwalker is able to know the past and predict the future. Unreal atmospheres and deformed sets, stylized acting, split personality, confusion between dream and reality.
Food for thought
Personality from the Greek person means mask. Person comes from the word personality. Individuality is a gift of existence, personality is imposed by society. Personality follows the flock of sheep, individuality is a lion moving on its own. Until you let go of your personality you won't be able to find your individuality.
LANGUAGE: German
SUBTITLES: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese
Badlands (1973)
Holly Sargis tells the film as a 15-year-old who lives in Fort Dupree, a gated community in South Dakota. She has a strained relationship with her father after her mother died from pneumonia years before her. Holly meets Kit Carruthers, a 25-year-old street cleaner. She looks like James Dean, a star that she Holly adores. As they come to know each other better, her antisocial and ferocious inclinations are slowly exposed.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Henry, a drifter with a dark past, settles in Chicago with his former cellmate, Otis. Together, they embark on a series of random and motiveless murders, sometimes documenting their atrocities with a video camera. The arrival of Becky, Otis’s sister, introduces a fragile possibility of human connection into Henry’s life, but the spiral of violence proves to be unstoppable and all-consuming.
A seminal masterpiece by John McNaughton, Henry demolished the stereotypes of ’80s slashers to usher in a new era of chilling realism. Shot in 16mm on a shoestring budget, the film adopts a docudrama style, a “portrait,” that observes the banality of evil with a clinical and ruthless distance. The violence is never spectacularized; it is presented as a squalid, mechanical act, a way to “alleviate boredom.” The grainy, dirty aesthetic is not a technical flaw, but the very essence of its power, making the horror tangible and terrifyingly plausible. Henry is not an evil genius, but an empty man, a shell forged by trauma and shame, whose brutality is as terrifying as it is pathetic.
Angst (1983)
Just released from prison after ten years, a psychopath known only as K. is immediately consumed by the need to kill again. He breaks into an isolated house, where he terrorizes a family consisting of an elderly woman, her daughter, and her disabled son. The film documents his frantic, clumsy, and ultimately pathetic homicidal rampage, entirely from his distorted point of view.
A unique and radical work by the Austrian Gerald Kargl, Angst is an extreme cinematic experiment that imprisons us in the killer’s mind. Through a feverish and disorienting use of the camera, with innovative techniques such as cameras mounted on the actor’s body and a complex system of mirrors, the film does not just narrate a murder, but simulates the adrenaline rush, the confusion, and the killer’s failure to realize his violent fantasies. It is the antithesis of the cliché of the calculating murderer: K. is a primordial, clumsy being blinded by his instincts, whose violence is as brutal as it is inept. A visceral and claustrophobic experience that redefines the concept of point of view in horror cinema.
Man Bites Dog (C’est arrivé près de chez vous) (1992)
A film crew follows Ben, a charismatic, witty, and surprisingly cultured serial killer, with the intention of making a documentary about his “profession.” Initially passive observers, the filmmakers progressively become accomplices in his heinous crimes, losing all semblance of journalistic objectivity and actively participating in the violence.
This Belgian mockumentary is one of the most ferocious and intelligent satires ever made about the media’s fascination with violence. The title itself, “Man Bites Dog,” evokes the journalistic principle that only the anomalous event makes the news, thus transforming Ben’s murders into a grotesque spectacle. The film does not just criticize the media; it directly implicates the viewer, forcing them to reflect on their own position as a voyeur. As the crew becomes more and more entangled, the line between observer and participant dissolves, posing a fundamental and uncomfortable question: does watching horror without intervening make us complicit?
Funny Games (1997)
A wealthy family arrives at their lake house for a quiet vacation. Their peace is interrupted by two young men, Paul and Peter, dressed in white and with impeccable manners. Under the pretext of asking for eggs, the two enter the house and begin to subject the family to a series of sadistic “games,” turning their sanctuary into a hell of psychological and physical torture.
Michael Haneke does not direct a horror film, but a critical essay on horror and its audience. Funny Games is a frontal and ruthless attack on the viewer and their thirst for violence. Paul, one of the two tormentors, constantly breaks the fourth wall, looking at the camera, commenting on the genre’s conventions, and betting with us on the victims’ survival. The famous scene where he “rewinds” the film with a remote control to undo an act of rebellion by the family is the ultimate authorial gesture: Haneke denies us any catharsis, any relief, trapping us in a hopeless cycle of violence. It is not a film about killers, but about our desire to watch them.
The House That Jack Built (2018)
Over the course of twelve years, the engineer and aspiring architect Jack recounts five of his murders, which he considers works of art, to the mysterious Verge, as he descends into Hell. Each “incident” becomes an opportunity for Jack for a philosophical digression on the nature of art, creation, destruction, and the role of the artist in society.
Lars von Trier signs his most provocative and self-flagellating self-portrait, using the serial killer Jack as an avatar for his own controversial figure as an author. The film is an exhausting philosophical debate on the legitimacy of art in the face of human suffering. The violence, explicit and almost unbearable, is not gratuitous, but a tool to prevent any form of admiration for the protagonist. Von Trier forces us to confront the darkest implications of defending absolute artistic freedom, while exploring toxic masculinity and the perverse desire to leave a mark, even if it is built on corpses. A brutal, arrogant, and intellectually ruthless work.
I Saw the Devil (2010)
When his pregnant fiancée is brutally murdered by the sadistic psychopath Kyung-chul, special agent Soo-hyun decides to take justice into his own hands. Instead of killing the murderer, he captures, tortures, and repeatedly releases him, starting a terrifying cat-and-mouse game. His quest for revenge drags him into an abyss of brutality, turning him into a monster not unlike the one he is hunting.
A masterpiece of South Korean cinema directed by Kim Jee-woon, I Saw the Devil is a heartbreaking reflection on the corrosive nature of revenge. The killer’s identity is known from the beginning; the tension lies not in the “who,” but in seeing how far “good” is willing to go to fight “evil.” The “catch and release” premise is a powerful metaphor for the self-destructive cycle of hatred. With extreme and unfiltered violence, the film explores the fine line between justice and sadism, showing how the obsessive pursuit of revenge can empty the soul and turn the hero into his own demon.
Memories of Murder (2003)
In 1986, a small rural province in South Korea is terrorized by a series of rapes and murders of young women. Two local detectives, rough and instinctive, clash with the more scientific methods of a colleague from Seoul. As the victims increase and the culprit remains elusive, the investigation turns into a haunting portrait of frustration, incompetence, and systemic failure.
Before the global success of Parasite, Bong Joon-ho directed this masterpiece that is much more than a simple police thriller. The film uses the hunt for a serial killer to expose the wounds of a nation under a military dictatorship. The police’s incompetence is not just a narrative device, but a fierce critique of a dysfunctional and brutal state apparatus. The ending, among the most powerful in cinema history, with Detective Park staring at the camera, breaks the fourth wall to suggest a chilling truth: the killer is an ordinary man, perhaps one of us, who is watching us.
The Golden Glove (2019)
Based on the true story of Fritz Honka, the film immerses us in the sordid Hamburg of the 1970s. We follow the life of Honka, a deformed and alcoholic loser, a regular at the infamous bar “The Golden Glove.” Here, he preys on lonely and marginalized women, taking them to his disgusting attic apartment to murder and dismember them, hiding the remains in the walls.
Fatih Akin’s work is the anti-serial killer film par excellence. It is a bleak and depressing character study that rejects any form of glorification. Akin forces us to sink into the physical and moral squalor of his protagonist, making the viewing an exhausting experience. There are no psychological explanations, no moments of catharsis. There is only the portrait of an absolute human misery, of a violence born from desperation and brutalization. A deliberately nauseating film, which divided critics precisely because it perfectly succeeds in its intent: to show evil in its most pathetic and repulsive form.
The Vanishing (Spoorloos) (1988)
During a vacation in France, young Saskia disappears from a service area, leaving her boyfriend, Rex, in a limbo of anguish. Three years later, Rex is still obsessed with the need to know what happened to her. His search finally leads him to the kidnapper, a seemingly normal man who offers him a terrible pact: he can discover the truth only if he agrees to suffer the same fate as Saskia.
This Dutch-French thriller, directed by George Sluizer, is a masterpiece of psychological terror that subverts the rules of the genre. By revealing the kidnapper’s identity almost immediately, the film shifts the suspense from “who” to “why,” exploring the horror of the unknown and the human need for an answer, at any cost. The atmosphere is charged with an existential tension that culminates in one of the most shocking and ruthless endings in cinema history. A work so terrifying in its ineluctable logic that Stanley Kubrick called it one of the scariest he had ever seen.
Clean, Shaven (1993)
Peter Winter, a man with schizophrenia, is released from a psychiatric institution and sets out to find his daughter, now in foster care. His journey is a harrowing odyssey through a world distorted by auditory hallucinations and constant paranoia. As he struggles to maintain a grip on reality, he unwittingly becomes the prime suspect in an investigation into the murder of a little girl.
Lodge Kerrigan’s film is a courageous and empathetic attempt to enter the mind of a person with schizophrenia. Instead of portraying Peter from the outside, as a threat, the film places us inside him, making us experience his world of deafening sounds and altered perceptions. The sound design is the real protagonist: a harsh and invasive soundscape that simulates the protagonist’s mental chaos. It is a painful and uncompromising work that challenges the viewer to look beyond the illness, showing a suffering man who, despite everything, is still moved by the most human instinct: love for a child.
I Stand Alone (Seul contre tous) (1998)
A horse meat butcher, after being released from prison for assaulting the man he believed had abused his daughter, finds himself alone and adrift in a society that rejects him. His inner monologue, a stream of consciousness filled with hatred, resentment, and nihilism, accompanies us on his descent towards a final explosion of violence.
Gaspar Noé’s first feature film is a punch to the gut, a provocative and uncompromising work. The director’s style is already recognizable: sudden jump cuts accompanied by gunshot-like sounds, intertitles that scream concepts like “MORALITY” and “JUSTICE,” and a narrative that forces us into the mind of a man on the margins. The film is not so much the story of a serial killer, but the portrait of the genesis of violence in an individual crushed by isolation, poverty, and failure. It is a brutal cinematic experience that explores human desperation in its rawest and most unpleasant form.
Possum (2018)
Philip, a disgraced puppeteer, returns to his dilapidated childhood home, carrying a suitcase containing a hideous spider-like puppet with a human face. Haunted by past traumas and the sinister presence of his stepfather Maurice, Philip desperately tries to get rid of the puppet, but it keeps coming back, like a physical embodiment of his anguish.
Matthew Holness’s directorial debut is a deeply disturbing psychological horror that uses the surreal to explore childhood trauma. The atmosphere is desolate and oppressive, almost devoid of dialogue, and relies on powerful images and a sense of ineluctable terror. The puppet, “Possum,” is a terrifying metaphor for repressed trauma: a monster created by Philip himself, representing his shame, his guilt, and his fear. The film is a slow nightmare that culminates in a brutal revelation, proving that the scariest monsters are not supernatural, but those that lurk in memories and in our homes.
Tony (2009)
Tony is a socially inept unemployed man who lives alone in a modest London apartment. His existence is marked by the obsessive viewing of old action films on VHS and clumsy attempts to socialize. When his desperate search for human connection is rejected, his frustration erupts into bursts of homicidal violence, turning his squalid apartment into a tomb.
Inspired by the figure of serial killer Dennis Nilsen, Gerard Johnson’s Tony is a dark and realistic character study that focuses on the desolate loneliness of its protagonist. The film deliberately avoids explaining deep psychological motivations, instead presenting violence as the tragic result of isolation and social inadequacy. Peter Ferdinando gives a masterful performance, making Tony a figure as pathetic as he is terrifying. It is a ruthless portrait of the “monster next door,” a man made invisible by society, whose distorted humanity emerges only in the act of destroying that of others.
Daniel Isn’t Real (2019)
Young and shy college student Luke, to cope with the trauma caused by his mother’s mental illness, “awakens” his childhood imaginary friend, the charismatic and self-confident Daniel. Initially, Daniel helps Luke overcome his insecurities, but soon his influence becomes sinister and possessive, pushing Luke into a vortex of violence and madness.
This psychological thriller explores themes of trauma, hereditary mental illness, and toxic masculinity through a body-horror lens. Daniel is not just an imaginary friend, but could be a parasitic and demonic entity that feeds on Luke’s innocence and vulnerability. The film skillfully blends psychological drama with surreal and disturbing images, creating a visceral descent into the mind of a young man fighting for control of his own identity. It is a powerful and frightening reflection on how our inner demons, real or imaginary, can take over.
Manhunter (1986)
Will Graham, an FBI profiler who retired after capturing the infamous Dr. Hannibal Lektor, is called back to service to hunt a new serial killer known as the “Tooth Fairy.” To enter the twisted mind of the killer, Graham is forced to confront Lektor again, risking losing himself in the abyss of madness he is so skilled at understanding.
Before The Silence of the Lambs, Michael Mann was the first to bring the character of Hannibal Lecter (here Lektor, played by a chilling Brian Cox) to the screen in this neo-noir masterpiece. Manhunter is a tense and atmospheric psychological thriller, characterized by the glossy aesthetic and synthetic music typical of the 80s. Mann focuses more on the investigative procedure and the psychology of the characters than on gore, elevating the genre to a level of sophistication unprecedented for the time. It is a fundamental film that defined the rules of the modern procedural thriller.
Frailty (2001)
A man shows up at the FBI confessing that his brother is the infamous “God’s Hand” serial killer. Through a long flashback, he recounts his childhood in rural Texas, where his widowed father, a meek and devout man, received a divine vision: he and his two sons were chosen by God to “destroy” demons hiding in human form.
Bill Paxton’s directorial debut is a superb Southern Gothic thriller that explores themes of faith, madness, and perspective. The film builds an almost unbearable tension, confronting the viewer with a distressing question: is the father a religious fanatic dragging his children into his psychosis or a true divine emissary? The narrative, seen through the eyes of a child, is ambiguous and unsettling, and culminates in a final plot twist that completely overturns the perception of events, leaving a deep and disturbing impression.
Monster (2003)
Based on the true story of Aileen Wuornos, a street prostitute in Florida who became a serial killer, the film follows her desperate life and her relationship with the young Selby Wall. Driven by a life of abuse and a desperate need to protect her love, Aileen begins to kill her clients, plunging into a spiral of violence from which there is no return.
Monster is a powerful and heartbreaking work, supported by one of the greatest performances in cinema history. Charlize Theron completely disappears into the role of Aileen, offering a physical and emotional incarnation that goes beyond mere acting. Patty Jenkins‘ film avoids sensationalism, choosing instead an empathetic but never justificatory approach. It is the portrait of a woman “cruelly bent by life,” a product of trauma who, for the first time, tastes love and desperately tries to be a better person, tragically failing. A film that offers no excuses, but shows the reasons behind the horror.
The Clovehitch Killer (2018)
Tyler is a teenager living a seemingly normal life in a small, devout community in Kentucky, still haunted by the memory of the “Clovehitch Killer,” a serial killer who terrorized the area ten years earlier. When Tyler discovers a series of disturbing pornographic images hidden among the personal belongings of his father, a respected community leader, he begins to suspect the unthinkable: that the man he admires may be the monster everyone fears.
Inspired by the true story of the BTK killer, this film is a slow-burn psychological thriller that builds palpable tension. The film explores the horror of discovering evil not in a stranger, but within the family nucleus. The narrative, seen from the son’s perspective, creates a suffocating atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion. Dylan McDermott’s performance as the father is masterful in its chilling portrayal of suburban normality, perfectly embodying the archetype of the “Jekyll and Hyde” next door.
Super Dark Times (2017)
Zach and Josh are two teenage best friends living a boring life in a suburban town in the 90s. Their routine of bikes, video games, and first crushes is shattered by a terrible accident with a samurai sword that leads to the death of a classmate. They decide to cover it up, but the secret corrodes them, turning friendship into paranoia and pushing one of them down a path of unstoppable violence.
Super Dark Times is a psychological teen thriller that perfectly captures the malaise and anxiety of growing up. Set in a pre-Columbine era, the film explores how a single traumatic event can shatter innocence and unleash latent demons. Kevin Phillips’ direction creates an oppressive and melancholic atmosphere, where the autumn landscape seems to reflect the inner decay of the characters. It is a dark tale about the loss of friendship and the descent into madness, a Stand by Me that plunges into the deepest darkness.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Steven Murphy is a brilliant cardiovascular surgeon with a seemingly perfect life: a beautiful wife, two children, and a luxurious home. His orderly existence is disrupted by Martin, the unsettling teenage son of a patient who died on his operating table. Martin insinuates himself into the family and casts a curse on them: Steven must choose a member of his family to kill, or they will all die of a mysterious illness.
Yorgos Lanthimos transposes the Greek tragedy of Iphigenia to a sterile and bourgeois American suburb. With his unmistakable style, made of surreal dialogues and deliberately atonal performances, the director creates an atmosphere of glacial and absurd terror. The film is a ruthless allegory on justice, guilt, and revenge, which explores the impotence of scientific rationality in the face of an irrational and cosmic evil. A disturbing and magnetic work, which balances a very black humor with a nightmarish moral dilemma.
The House of the Devil (2009)
In the 1980s, college student Samantha, short on cash, accepts a babysitting job in an isolated house during a lunar eclipse. Her employers, an elderly and sinister couple, turn out to be the leaders of a satanic cult that has chosen Samantha for a terrifying ritual. Her struggle for survival turns into a nightmare of supernatural terror.
Ti West signs a masterful homage to the horror of the 70s and 80s, recreating its aesthetics and rhythm with philological precision. Shot in 16mm, with slow zooms and a slow-burn construction of suspense, the film perfectly evokes the atmosphere of the “satanic panic” of that decade. Rather than relying on cheap jump scares, The House of the Devil builds a growing and ineluctable sense of terror, proving that the anticipation of horror can be more frightening than the horror itself. A modern classic of independent cinema.
Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
Gilderoy, a shy and meticulous English sound engineer, is hired to work on the audio mixing of a violent Italian giallo film. Locked in the claustrophobic recording studio, Gilderoy is forced to create gruesome sounds of torture and murder, using vegetables and tools. As he immerses himself in the film’s sound world, his psyche begins to waver and the line between fiction and reality dissolves.
This film by Peter Strickland is a unique and brilliant meta-cinematic work, a psychological horror in which terror is not shown, but only heard. It is a tribute to Italian giallo cinema, but also a profound reflection on the power of sound in creating our perception of horror. Toby Jones’ performance is extraordinary in portraying the mental disintegration of a man whose art is consuming him. Berberian Sound Studio is a sensory experience that demonstrates how the most disturbing violence is the one we let our imagination construct.
Alleluia (2014)
Gloria, a single mother working in a morgue, meets Michel through a dating ad and falls madly in love with him. She soon discovers that he is a con man who seduces and robs lonely widows. Instead of leaving him, Gloria becomes his accomplice, pretending to be his sister. Her obsessive jealousy, however, turns their scams into a bloodbath, starting a spiral of murders.
Inspired by the true story of the “Lonely Hearts Killers,” Fabrice Du Welz’s film is a feverish and visceral immersion in a folie à deux. The direction is stylized and almost dreamlike, capturing the sick passion and psychological dependence between the two protagonists. Lola Dueñas gives a powerful and terrifying performance of a woman whose desperate search for love turns into a homicidal fury. It is a brutal tale about love as obsession, a macabre dance that explores the deadly symbiosis between two lost souls.
The Snowtown Murders (2011)
In a desolate Australian suburb, teenager Jamie is taken under the protective wing of John Bunting, his mother’s new charismatic boyfriend. John presents himself as a father figure, but soon reveals his nature as a sociopathic vigilante, who convinces a group of men to torture and kill people he deems “weak” or “perverted.” Jamie, a victim of abuse and desperately seeking a role model, is slowly drawn into his orbit.
Justin Kurzel’s debut is a chilling and difficult-to-watch work, which focuses not so much on the murders, but on the social context that made them possible. The film explores how poverty, generational abuse, and an ethical vacuum can create a fertile ground for the most extreme violence. Through Jamie’s perspective, we witness the process of psychological manipulation that transforms a victim into a perpetrator. It is a dark and hopeless portrait of exploited vulnerability, a ruthless analysis of the social roots of evil.
Killers (2014)
Nomura is a charming and ruthless Japanese executive who films his murders and uploads them to the internet. Thousands of miles away, in Jakarta, Bayu, a disgraced journalist, sees Nomura’s videos and, in a moment of anger, commits a murder. When he uploads his video online, the two killers come into contact, giving rise to a twisted relationship and a deadly rivalry.
This Indonesian-Japanese co-production by the Mo Brothers is an ambitious psychological thriller that explores violence in the digital age. The film contrasts two types of killers: the cold and calculating predator (Nomura) and the impulsive and emotional vigilante (Bayu). Killers offers a disturbing critique of online culture, where violence can go viral and anonymity can encourage the darkest instincts. It is an elegant and brutal work that meditates on the effects of the spectacularization of death in contemporary society.
The Sadness (2021)
After a year of living with a relatively harmless virus, the population of Taiwan lets its guard down. Suddenly, the virus mutates, turning infected people into sadistic maniacs thirsty for violence. Devoid of any inhibition, the infected indulge in the most cruel and depraved acts they can imagine. In the midst of the chaos, a young couple desperately tries to reunite.
The Sadness is an explosion of extreme violence and uncompromising gore, a fierce social commentary on repressed anger and the collapse of civilization in times of pandemic. Director Rob Jabbaz reinvents the zombie genre: his “infected” are not brainless living dead, but fully conscious beings, driven to commit the most unspeakable atrocities. Inspired by the graphic novel Crossed, the film is a brutal and nihilistic satire that uses the most visceral horror to reflect on the fragility of our social order and the beast that hides just beneath the surface.
The Treatment (De Behandeling) (2014)
Police inspector Nick Cafmeyer is a man haunted by the unsolved kidnapping of his brother, which occurred during their childhood. When a shocking new case emerges – a family held hostage and their child missing – Nick finds himself hunting a pedophile who seems to have ties to his past. The investigation turns into a personal obsession that drags him into the darkest depths of trauma.
This Belgian thriller, an adaptation of a novel by Mo Hayder, is a dark and macabre noir that delves into extremely disturbing psychological territories. The film is not for the faint of heart, tackling themes of sexual violence and pedophilia with an almost unbearable rawness. The narrative is a claustrophobic journey into the mind of a man whose unresolved trauma shapes his perception of reality, making the hunt for the killer a desperate attempt to confront his own demons. A brutal and compelling work, with a twist that puts everything in an even more sinister light.
Cold in July (2014)
Texas, 1989. Richard Dane, an ordinary man, kills a burglar who broke into his house. Hailed as a local hero, he soon finds himself threatened by the man’s father, an ex-convict seeking revenge. However, a shocking discovery reveals that things are not as they seem, dragging Richard, the father, and an eccentric private investigator into a murky world of corruption, snuff films, and violence.
Jim Mickle’s film is a pulp neo-noir that changes its skin with every act. It begins as a home invasion thriller, transforms into a revenge drama, and finally explodes into an action buddy movie. With its 80s aesthetic, complete with mustaches, mullets, and a John Carpenter-esque synth soundtrack, the film explores themes of masculinity and violence in an ironic and brutal way. It is an unpredictable and stylistically bold tale of how an ordinary man can be seduced by the dark side, discovering a part of himself he never knew he had.
Creep (2014)
Aaron, a struggling videographer, answers an online ad for a one-day job: to film a man named Josef, who claims to have terminal cancer and wants to leave a video diary for his unborn son. What begins as an eccentric request quickly turns into a psychological nightmare, as Josef’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre, unpredictable, and threatening.
Creep is a masterpiece of minimalism in the found footage genre. With only two actors and a simple premise, the film builds unbearable tension based entirely on Mark Duplass’s unsettling performance and psychological manipulation. The film masterfully plays with social conventions and our reluctance to be rude, showing how a predator can exploit empathy and vulnerability. It is a unnerving experience that demonstrates how the most effective horror doesn’t need monsters, just a man with a camera and terrifying intentions.
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Eva, once a successful travel writer, lives a lonely and tormented life, ostracized by her community. Through a series of fragmented flashbacks, we relive her difficult relationship with her son Kevin, from birth. From his early childhood cruelties to his manipulative adolescence, Eva struggles with the suspicion that there is something deeply wrong with her son, a suspicion that culminates in an act of unimaginable violence.
Lynne Ramsay’s film is a devastating and non-linear analysis of motherhood and the origins of evil. Tilda Swinton gives a masterful performance of a mother trapped between guilt and fear. The film offers no easy answers to the “nature versus nurture” question, but immerses us in Eva’s psychological landscape, a fragmented world tinged with red, the color of blood and guilt. It is a visually stunning and psychologically heartbreaking work of art, which leaves the viewer to question responsibility and maternal love in the face of the inconceivable.
A vision curated by a filmmaker, not an algorithm
In this video I explain our vision
