“Deep Red” (1975)
With its setting in overwhelming architecture, unreliable perspectives, and pulpy, over-saturated colors, Dario Argento‘s “Deep Red” is the aesthetic ideal of the Italian horror giallo subgenre. A gloriously impressionistic nightmare, the movie centers on an American pianist (David Hemmings) who witnesses the gruesome murder of a psychic medium in his own apartment building and spends the entire film, with the help of a feisty reporter, in pursuit of mysterious figure wearing black leather gloves; the killer at large. But the film is really about visions and textures; a giallo-staple pursuit of perception, chasing that one detail the musician protagonist can’t quite remember or put into context. An idiosyncratic vision, where characters are dwarfed by columns and statues, virtually buried in concrete, Argento crafts a sensory overload about the deep desire to make sense of the distorted realities that surround us. “Deep Red” exists in a few versions, with a longer cut released in Italy as “Profondo Rosso.” The longer version features more comedy, and extra dialogue scenes, but isn’t essential enough to be worth tracking down for casual viewing – Russ Fisher
“Frenzy” (1972)
Imagine if Alfred Hitchcock decided to remake “Psycho,” but instead of having to cheekily hold back on the sex and violence, fully embraced the new liberties of motion picture standardization. Because he did just that with “Frenzy.” Arguably the master’s last great movie (he died eight years later and only completed one additional film, the middling “Family Plot“), “Frenzy” is the tale of a London serial killer and sex criminal whose murder weapon is a necktie. A little more than a decade before, Hitchcock was hiding murder behind experimental editing techniques, but “Frenzy” is full of nudity and hardcore thrills (and since it was in Technicolor, the blood really pops). Of course, it wouldn’t be a Hitchcock masterpiece if there wasn’t cheeky humor and playful technical mastery – “Frenzy” has both, in spades. What’s wonderful, too, is that while the director quickly establishes who the murderer is, he still has fun playing with the audience’s expectations as evidence mounts that another character could be at fault. (We’re being purposefully elliptical here; “Frenzy” remains a largely underappreciated and little-seen work and we encourage you to seek it out.) Hitchcock isn’t really interested in motive or psychology; he’d already investigated that stuff. Instead, he has the time of his life being the naughtiest he’s ever been – and it’s a total kick to watch. – Drew Taylor
“Memories of Murder” (2003)
Based on the true and unsolved case of Korea’s first known serial killer, which bears more than just slight resemblance to David Fincher‘s similarly futile search for an elusive killer, South Korean director Bong Joon-ho‘s “Memories of Murder” is, like “Zodiac,” more the story about the police than of the crime itself. Played by Kim Sang-kyung and the ubiquitous Song Kang-ho, ‘Murder’ functions as a critique of provincial police ineptitude, but also an acknowledgment of just how unprepared and unequipped most police are in trying to grapple with such hideous crimes. The complex, multi-layered film, both mordantly funny and chilling, also works as a character study of these two men and their approaches — one methodical, one intuitive but sloppy — and how ineffective both techniques are. But it’s the sprawling, unconventional structure that makes it really stand out. Impressively only Bong Joon-ho’s second film and arguably his masterwork, the film is almost subversive in its relentless thrust away from resolution, redemption and “closure.” Already a full-formed auteur with an individual vision, it’s hard to take something as concrete as a crime procedural and make something so impressionistic and elusive from it, but Joon-Ho, just two films in, does so in a dazzling, unforgettable fashion. – RP
“Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” (1986)
Talk about infamous. “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,” based in part on the serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Toole, first premiered in 1986 but didn’t find theatrical distribution until 1990. This was a film that wasn’t just hot button but felt downright dangerous. Part of it is that the movie feels so realistic. As its title suggests, the film fully investigates the seemingly unstoppable serial killer (played with fierce intensity by Michael Rooker) as he makes his way across the country, murdering countless people. Henry came from an abusive place and eventually settled upon an ideology that would allow him to comfortably kill those he saw fit. There isn’t a lot of morality present, just a kind of sociological cataloguing of behavior. Co-writer/director John McNaughton is a brilliant stylist and convincing storyteller, turning the trail of carnage left behind by Henry Lee Lucas into something of an American folktale. (Lucas frequently confessed to hundreds of murders he would have had no way of actually committing.) As intimate as “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” is, there’s also something grand and mythic about it too. – DT
“Dahmer” (2002)
You know Jeremy Renner from his Academy Award-nominated and star-making turn in “The Hurt Locker,” you possibly remember him before then for his supporting lead performance in “28 Week Later,” but chances are you didn’t see his breakthrough role in the underseen 2002 biographical horror, “Dahmer.” Directed by David Jacobson (“Down In The Valley“) and based on the life of notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer who dominated the headlines in 1991 when he was captured and his gruesome exploits of necrophilia, cannibalism, and the preservation of body parts came to light, if “Dahmer” is a bit conventional and uneven, Renner is not. He’s a true revelation and it’s curious the actor had to wait nearly seven years after this film to break out. Told in a flashback formula of past and present, vacillating between the two, “Dahmer” presents the viewer with a lot of the character’s hideous actions and predatory tactics, but rarely show much insight into the why of his clearly sick psyche. But Renner, with a perfectly blank and dispassionate performance, tells us volumes about the character’s loneliness, dark impulses, and frighteningly enigmatic desires. Renner invites you to empathize with Dahmer’s existential aloneness, but never to the degree that you’re not revolted and horrified by his eerily detached and ghastly acts of predation that make for an acutely unsettling portrait of the disturbed mind. – RP
What else? Frank Capra‘s 1944 film “Arsenic and Old Lace” is a serial killer film of sorts when you think about it, “Citizen X” comes to mind, Hong-jin Na’s “The Chaser,” other entries in the Hannibal Lecter series including Ridley Scott‘s fairly disastrous “Hannibal,” Tom Tykwer’s “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer,” Bobcat Goldthwait‘s “God Bless America,” Bill Paxton‘s “Frailty,” “Saw,” the Hughes Brothers‘ deeply uneven “From Hell,” Tarsem’s visually rapturous “The Cell,” “The Bone Collector,” “The Pledge,” and even Terrence Malick’s “Badlands” arguably has a serial killer at its center. “No Country for Old Men,” “Kiss the Girls” “Mr. Brooks,” “The Hitcher,” “Insomnia,” DePalma’s “Dressed To Kill,” the list goes on and on. What’s your favorite serial killer film?