The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Psychos and Serial Killers is an all-embracing term that refers to anybody of murderously psychopathic disposition in genre cinema. This can range from general murderers and Stalkers to persons of Disturbed Psychology and to those that fall under the modern description of a serial killer.
In textbook psychology terms, a psychopath is merely someone who displays antisocial behaviour and is lacking empathy – so we will specify here that a psycho refers to those with murderous intent and disturbed psychology in a horror context (so as not to include general all-purpose villains too).
The field is so prolific it is hard to say who the first screen psycho would have been. The first time this became a major genre was with Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and its memorably gender-contorted, split-personalitied Norman Bates. The Psycho-Thrillers and Giallo Films that followed offered up a range of similarly gender-conflicted characters with strange psychological quirks.
This morphed into the psycho films of the 1970s, which placed less an emphasis on the thriller aspects and more on disturbed individuals and their often sordid states of mind. Plentiful psychos were found lurking in backwoods America to attacks passers-by in the Backwoods Brutality cycle.
The 1980s brought the Slasher Film where the psycho became a hulking Boogeyman or else a member among a group of teens nursing some troubled psychic split. Fatal Attraction (1987) produced a series of stalker films with vengeful women (usually) striking back for past or perceived slights.
The success of The Silence of the Lambs (1991) brought a public fascination with the term ‘serial killer’ and created the Serial Killer Thriller. In these, what was previously lumped together as being just ‘disturbed psychology’ was examined in terms of behavioural patterns that drove an individual to act, all of which could be deduced by minute examination of forensic evidence that gave key clues to their identity.
There is also a sizeable body of films about true-life psychopaths and serial killers. These are discussed under True Crime Films.
Australian black comedy about a guy imprisoned to be a girl’s perfect prom date. The film takes to horror with enthusiasm and is owned by two fantastic performances from the women of the show
The third of the Maniac Cop films had production problems and now feels more like a regular slasher film, although is still boosted by a characteristically witty Larry Cohen script
Splendidly lurid and schlocky psycho film 1970s style with Erik Stern having the time of his life and giving an amazingly demented performance in the title role(s)
An overlooked homage to the slasher film. This doesn’t set out to parody, deconstruct or subvert the tropes, rather is just a well-made and affectionate tribute to the genre’s 1980s heyday
Sound remake of the silent Alfred Hitchcock film, starring big man Laird Cregar as the new lodger that a family believe might be Jack the Ripper. Cregar gives a wonderfully melodramatic performance
Directed by and starring actress Alice Lowe, this comes in a blackly funny vein. Lowe plays a pregnant woman driven by the voice of her baby as she starts dispatching everything from sleazy men to those who annoy her
Cult director Takashi Miike makes a film about a teacher who goes on a shooting rampage through a school where Miike takes an unrestrained glee in the carnage
In this space of three films, Nicholas McCarthy has risen to the top of this site’s Up and Coming Directors to watch list. On a script level, this is a standard Evil Child film but is made something worth watching by McCarthy’s directorial jumps
Muchly reviled slasher film that has undeniable effect in its determination to go all the way. I would argue that it is actually a far better film than Friday the 13th
Controversial remake of the 1980 psycho film. The remake’s unique take is that everything is shot in first-person from the point-of-view of the killer.
Quite good British tv mini-series psycho-thriller in which calculating Hermione Norris sneaks her way in and takes over the home of Julie Graham stealing her husband and gaslighting her
I was fairly ho-hum about the first Orphan but this is a sequel that entirely surprises you
Undeniably influenced by the classic Mystery of the Wax Museum, an entertainingly lurid film with Cameron Mitchell as a mad waxworks curator taking revenge on a Hollywood studio by encasing the bodies of its’ stars in wax
Nightwatch about the paranoia of a morgue attendant on the night shift was a festival hit. After 29 years, the principals reunite for a sequel
A True Crime film loosely based on an incident in Russia in the 1990s where a man and his mother killed homeless people and ate their flesh. This pushes the material into an admirably grim and disturbing place
Amid the host of Psycho copies that came out during the 1960s, this was one that played everything as a comedy. A wildly overacting Rod Steiger is a psycho actor who adopts a different disguises every time he goes out to kill
A superior example of the giallo film. Not quite up with the works of Dario Argento, this still has considerable stylishness, along with a plot that borrows from Eyes of Laura Mars
A splendidly trashy film that throws all good taste to the wind The title role is played by a sizzling, substantially undressed Paz de la Huerta. While deficient in acting ability, she delivers an hilarious voiceover
Thriller following several different people as they drive towards the title Texas town, while a serial killer calls into an all-night radio talkback
A surprisingly good variant on The Hitcher (albeit set in urban environs) where Samuel L. Jackson does the unique Samuel L. Jackson sarcastic badassery with demoniac results as a psychopathic stranger who takes hapless family man Luke Wilson for a ride leaving a trail of bodies
Tense and twist-filled thriller with Rachel Nichols trapped inside a carpark building by a psychopathic Wes Bentley
Thriller in which landlords Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith’s lives are terrorised by psychopathic tenant Michael Keaton
Modestly effective film about a haunted suburban house. Debuting director Nicholas McCarthy produces a number of accomplished and eerie scares that stand him as a promising new name. The film weakens in the last act when trying to tie everything together with an improbable rationale
Mike Flanagan horror mini-series adapted from Christopher Pike’s book, this is set around a group of patients in a hospice who form a group to tell each other horror stories
A strong and worthwhile serial killer thriller mini-series from the BBC with a killer targeting victims with the names and professions of the apostles
In his last ever produced screenplay, cult director Larry Cohen turns in a wonderfully playful script with Matthew Lillard as a screenwriting lecturer harassed by a killer only to find real-life doesn’t obey the same rules that screenplays do
Early film from Bong Joon-ho, a true crime work about the investigation into a rural Korean serial killer
Well worthwhile Psycho sequel directed by Anthony Perkins himself who makes an assured, even at times dazzling debut. The film has a playfulness and outrageousness that quite takes you aback
The debut of Canadian director Gerard Ciccoritti who should have become more well known, this goes for broke and becomes splendidly deranged
Vietnam War film where the setting makes a unique and surprisingly effective backdrop for a modern film noir psycho-thriller
Filipino variant on the Japanese ghost story (Ring, The Grudge et al). Much more low key than some of the other variants but with moments of undeniably spooky effect and with an ambitious story that takes place across three different decades
Jumping aboard the contemporary fad for companies like Uber, this concerns a psychopathic driver who sarcastically ridicules his customer before proceeding to kill them. Pleasingly dark and twisted and decidedly u-PC at times
A rather interesting horror film in which both the heroine and the heroine of the story she is reading are stalked by a disfigured madman, as the boundary between fiction and reality begins to dissolve
Form the fine and underrated Babak Anvari, a tight thriller about a duo of graffiti artists who get more than they planned for when they break into the home of a psycho Hugh Bonneville
A decent variant on The Most Dangerous Game with a woman forced to survive with her bare hands while pursued by a hunter, this places emphasis on the psychological interplay between hunter and hunted
A solid and well-made film that creates quite a reasonable tension as a family that live in the woods deal with a lurking wolf. What is going on sits in an interesting state of ambiguity.
Solidly effective Belgian film about a woman fleeing through the woods from a killer who wants to make snuff movies. One of several films about people hunted in the woods to come out around the same time
While the title suggests something of the classic The Hitcher, this reminds more of And Soon the Darkness with its image of tourists being stalked in the pastoral French countryside. Ravishingly photographed, creating a strong sense of dis-ease to arrive at a great twist ending
John Cusack leads a star cast line-up in what appears to be a slasher where a group of people gathered at a motel are being killed by someone among their number. Big conceptual twists then ensue
Despite borrowing the title, this has the no connection to the 1953 film with Vincent Price as a mad waxworks curator and is a modern slasher film. Nevertheless, director Jaume Collet-Serra does come up with some very inventive dispatches
The film that launched Vincent Price as a horror icon where he plays a mad waxworks curator who covers murdered bodies in wax. A remake of Mystery of the Wax Museum shot in the original 1950s 3D fad.
From British director Pete Walker who specialised in films about insane authority figures slaughtering Swinging Sixties youth – in this case, he caused a considerable stir with a film featuring a psychopathic Catholic priest
1970s disaster movie with George Segal tracking Timothy Bottoms as a mad bomber blowing up rollercoasters
A highly entertaining Herman Cohen production where Michael Gough plays a mad crime writer who employs a series of cruel sensationalistic deaths for his victims
Rather good New Zealand made horror film set in a geriatric home with Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow engaged in a series of psychological games as a stroke-impaired Rush tries to stop a murderous Lithgow
An early film from prolific exploitation director Jess Franco, one that comes with some beautifully Gothic photography in its tale of a hooded killer
The third sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Usually reviled by fans, this is not unworthwhile, capped by a genuinely insane performance from a then-unknown Matthew McConaughey
Strong and effective film set against the backdrop of The Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s depicting a gang of psychopaths that killed and tortured people on the streets
This gained a minor cult in which an abused nerd snaps as a result of constant humiliations and goes on a killing rampage. Tony Radloff gives an extraordinary performance
Classic from the heyday of the slasher film. While the plot only recycles Friday the 13th, everything else is above average from the characterisations to the novelty deaths, before the film reaches one of the great unforgettable endings of the cycle
Ambitious ingenue film about a loner who may or may not be a serial killer. Directed with some subtle ambiguity and featuring good performances from the two leads
Disappointing adaptation of a classic noir novel where neither Michael Winterbottom nor a blank Casey Affleck do much to get inside the noirish mood or the troubled central character of a psychopathic sheriff’s deputy
The original film version of the Jim Thompson novel with Stacy Keach as a charismatic and well-liked sheriff’s deputy in a small Montana town who harbours a psychopathic side
One of a growing number of horror takes on Groundhog Day with the unique premise of a serial killer trapped in a timeloop where he kills everybody but must change his ways to escape
Billed as Israel’s first horror film, this is more a dark and violent film that delights in taking a crosscut of characters and mercilessly putting the screws on them
This comes with a fascinatingly original premise – man wakes up with complete amnesia and finds that he has the ability to kill anyone within thirty feet of him. The case of a film that holds attention with a captivating and unusual plot and a series of constant whiplash reversals
A quite good thriller where Dolph Lundgren plays a detective who is drawn into a underworld of sadomasochistic sex during the hunt for a female serial killer
Quite reasonable serial killer thriller, undeniably influenced by Se7en, with Christopher Lambert tracking a killer who believes he can resurrect Christ
A psycho-thriller in which Andy Garcia plays a detective who is trying to protect/romance blind Uma Thurman from a serial killer who targets blind women
Slasher film with a diabolically funny sense of humour as a psychopathic park ranger stalks a group of partying punks
An entertainingly madcap screen pairing of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi with the latter as a Poe-obsessed surgeon who has built a house of Poe-inspired torture devices
A strong and intelligent multiverse film filled with some great twists where a woman travels across multiple worlds to track down and kill different versions of the man who murdered her daughter
Christopher Nolan’s second film, an English-language remake of a Norwegian thriller. The action is relocated to Alaska and gets the addition of Robin Williams as a serial killer but is far less effective than the original
A standout thriller full of sharp whiplash twists that features Cassandra Naud as a murderous psycho who targets social media influencers and then steals their identities
Halfway reasonable Jean-Claude Van Damme film in which he plays the clone of a serial killer who is brought to life in attempt to track down the original
A modest and well directed psycho-thriller from the Anglo-horror cycle with Susan George as a babysitter stalked by a deranged Ian Bannen
An effective slow burn film that settles in with the promise of being a standard entry with a babysitter being stalked on Halloween night. However, this proves to turn all your expectations on their head
Modestly effective psycho-thriller with Charlie Sheen in his first psycho role as a fireman who snaps under the pressures of everyday life and threatens his neighbour
Droll British comedy where Jane Horrocks gets the advice from the ghosts of famous murders about disposing of her controlling mother
Another of the giallo psycho-thrillers from Dario Argento in his heyday as David Hemmings is witness to a murder and tries to find the killer. As with Argento’s films of this period, focused around a series of stylish and sadistic dispatches
A Jean-Claude Van Damme action vehicle set in a prison that becomes an interestingly stylised realm in a wild plot featuring serial killers and organ harvesting schemes
Another of Dario Argento’s giallo psycho-thrillers with all the stylistically wild and over-the-top deaths one expects as a horror writer finds people being murdered with pages from his books in their mouths
Quentin Tarantino’s less interesting half of the Grindhouse double-bill. Tarantino makes a film about a psycho stuntman but gets sidetracked by referencing 1970s car chase movies
A variation on the killer clown film that does rack up quite a degree of tension and pushes the material for something edgy. A popular hit that has produced two sequels.
Fascinating true story about a college student who struck up a correspondence with serial killer John Wayne Gacy and fashioned himself according to Gacy’s victim profile so as to get closer to him
David Cronenberg adapts a Stephen King novel with Christopher Walken waking from a coma with clairvoyant abilities. An okay film if one that lacks the personal intensity and rich themes of Cronenberg’s original works
Brian Yuzna plays on everybody’s fear of the dentist in this outrageously nasty film top-lining Corbin Bernsen in wildly over-the-top mode as a psychopathic dentist amid a series of imaginatively sadistic dental-themed dispatches
One of the better entries among the 1980s slasher film cycle – and even featuring the era’s quintessential heroine Jamie Lee Curtis. Essentially Halloween aboard a train, at which the film does the basics of the genre with perfect competence and undeniably stylish photography
Oddball psycho-thriller from low-budget director Ron Ford about a series of killings and games of suspicion occurring in and around an off-season bed and breakfast
Modestly effective psycho film with Paulina Porizkova pursued through a deserted asylum by escaped serial killer Larry Drake
A remake of Tobe Hooper’s landmark classic that presaged a host of inferior 70s/80s horror remakes throughout the 2000s/10s. What we have is now a different film although not entirely an uninteresting one
At variance to the assorted other films about survival in shark-infested waters, this features Jai Courtney in a completely crazed performance as a serial killer who feeds his victims to sharks
Prequel to the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, which sets out to tell the origin story of the cannibal family. New director Jonathan Liebesman pushes the gore and sadism to Torture Porn extremes
Interesting portrait of a true-life serial killer that was produced under the auspices of Rainer Werner Fassbinder concerning a vampire-like gay killer who operated in Germany during the 1920s. Not without some shock value, this is more arthouse film than it is horror
Ryan Nicholson makes an amusing slasher film that takes place on a horror movie set where the set driver is a fan of the scream queen star and decides to start eliminating people to start making the film go his way
Psycho-thriller about a woman who has an abortion and then years later is married and pregnant when she is stalked by her ex-boyfriend demanding that the child is his. From an early Larry Cohen script
Directorial debut from the Die Hard scriptwriter Jeb Stuart is a solid thriller but the film was a surprise flop despite bringing together an impressive cast
Many argue that this is the original slasher film – and it does the whole formula a good deal better than many of those that came along a few years later, having some wry characterisations and a sardonic sense of humour
Modest psycho-thriller about the psychological games between a psychopathic lighthouse keeper (a fine Tom Berenger) and his young assistant
Nicely chilling film in which Maika Monroe believes that the person in the apartment opposite might be stalking her
Released before the Tim Burton version, this is a British tv production that offers a grimly realistic, non-musical historical portrait of Sweeney Todd with Ray Winstone in the title role
One of the early films from Lucio Fulci – the film that he always insisted was his best – concerning a series of child killings in a small town. Quite different to the sort of film Fulci became known for
Actress Devanny Pinn makes a fine directorial debut with this True Crime film based on Ted Bundy and the incident where he went on a killing spree at a Florida sorority house
A darkly funny take on the slasher film with Larry Drake standing out in a memorable performance as the title mad doctor. This delivers more medical novelty deaths and bad puns than one believed possible
Despite the title, this is a horror film that takes place in a mine (albeit one where the former inmates of an asylum lurk). This plays out fairly well by a set of familiar genre tropes and delivers a solid degree of tension
Scott Derrickson delivers an eerie film from a Joe Hill story about a child who is abducted and imprisoned by a serial killer but then receives message from beyond the grave on an old telephone.
The film that made Clint Eastwood’s name. He is a rule-bending cop who decides he has to defy the system in his pursuit of a psycho (a thinly disguised version of the then active Zodiac Killer)
Rob Zombie’s sequel to House of 1000 Corpses and a more polished film, probably Zombie’s best. On the other hand, Zombie’s nihilistic worldview and sympathy for the psychopaths does take one aback.
Amicus adapts several stories from the notorious EC Comics as one of their anthology films. Missing is EC’s black humour but this is a worthwhile Amicus anthology
One of the better copies of Fatal Attraction with Rose McGowan as school pupil with a crush on her teacher who proceeds to ruthlessly eliminate all in her way