Matador (1986)
Sex and Death/Serial Killers/Black Comedy
Cheerfully outrageous early Pedro Almodovar black comedy where virginal Antonio Banderas confesses to a series of murders conducted by his death obsessed lawyer
Psychos and Serial Killers
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.
MaXXXine (2024)
1980s Hollywood Psycho Film
Ti West and Mia Goth round out their trilogy of films begun with X with a psycho film set in 1980s Hollywood
The Meat Puppet (2012)
Psycho Film
Low-budget psycho film that nevertheless comes out as interestingly twisted. Keith Collins makes for a disturbing central character, obsessed with seducing women, boasting to us about his methods, then imprisoning them and serving up their flesh as meat for he and his aunt
Meeting Evil (2012)
Road Trip with a Killer
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
Memories of Murder (2003)
True Life Korean Serial Killer Thriller
Early film from Bong Joon-ho, a true crime work about the investigation into a rural Korean serial killer
Messages Deleted (2010)
Screenwriter Taunted by a Killer
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
Messiah (2001)
Serial Killer Thriller
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
Midnight (2021)
Deaf Girl Pursued by a Serial Killer
A standout South Korean film about a deaf girl pursued through the streets by a serial killer
The Midnight Club (2022)
Teenagers Tell Horror Stories
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
The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
Ritual Killer on the Subway/Clive Barker Adaptation
One of the best Clive Barker adaptations. Japan’s Ryuhei Kitamura brings a masterful assurance with the horror elements and does gore in astonishingly new and unrealised ways
Midnight Ride (1990)
Psycho Hitchhiker/Action
Cheaply made Cannon Film that plays out like an action version of The Hitcher featuring a completely over-the-top Mark Hamill as the psycho
Mikey (1992)
Psycho Child
Routine psycho-thriller with Brian Bonsall as a child who murders his adopted families when they fail to meet his expectation. An amusing idea plays out with comic-bookish set-ups and a cliched plot
Mindhunters (2004)
Serial Killer Thriller
Serial killer thriller from the perpetually terrible Renny Harlin. A variant on Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, it promptly collapses into ludicrous plotting and an even more ridiculous string of deaths
The Minus Man (1999)
Genteel Serial Killer
Standout film featuring Owen Wilson as a genteel serial killer
Misbegotten (1997)
Psycho Sperm Donor
From a Larry Cohen script, a side-splitting effort with Kevin Dillon as a psychopathic sperm donor who forcibly intrudes into the life of his baby’s mother
Misery (1990)
Writer Imprisoned by a Psycho Fan/Stephen King Adaptation
A classic Stephen King adaptation from Rob Reiner with writer James Caan imprisoned by psycho fan Kathy Bates, who gives a terrifying performance that won her an Academy Award
Mommy’s Day (1996)
Psycho Mother
Sequel to Mommy, which featured Patty McCormack as a psychopathic mother
Mommy (1995)
Psycho Mother
Patty McCormack played a psychopathic child in The Bad Seed. This is essentially a sequel where McCormack has grown up and become a mother
Monster (2003)
True-Life Serial Killer
Patty Jenkins and Charlize Theron combine forces on their portrait of female serial killer Aileen Wuornos. The result won Theron, who undergoes an amazing transformation, an Academy Award for Best Actress
Monster: The Ed Gein Story (2025)
True-Life Body Snatcher and Necrophile
An eight-episode tv mini-series based on true-life necrophile/grave robber Ed Gein. This expands the story out and considerably embellishes the facts but is one of the most outrageously out there pieces of tv watching you will ever come across
The Most Assassinated Woman in the World (2018)
Real-Life Grand Guignol Theatre
A biopic of Paula Maxa, the real-life star of Paris’s Grand Guignol Theatre. The Grand Guignol specialised in plays depicting gory on-stage deaths and she was killed on stage an estimated 10,000 times during her career. Here the biopic elements are blended with a mystery in which she is targeted by a serial killer
The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
Sportsman Hunts Human Game
The first and best version of the oft-told story in which shipwreck survivors are forced to survive with their bare hands while being hunted by a mad Russian aristocrat
Mother Love (1989)
Psychopathic Mother
There was undeniable shock value watching 1960s sex symbol Diana Rigg cast as a venomous middle-aged woman with murder on her mind. While this BBC mini-series won awards, you feel that a 1960s Hammer psycho-thriller would have conducted it in half the time
Mother’s Boys (1994)
Psycho Separated Mother
Thriller with Jamie Lee Curtis as a psychopathic mother determined to get her boys back from her ex
Mother’s Day (1980)
Backwoods Brutality
A parody of the Backwoods Brutality film. One of the very first films produced by Lloyd Kaufman of Troma fame
Mother’s Day (2010)
Home Invasion/Torture Porn
This has almost nothing in common with the 1980 film it is supposedly based on. Instead we get a home invasion film where Darren Lynn Bousman of Saw sequel fame shows that constant scenes of brutality and torture are all that he has in his arsenal
Motor Home Massacre (2005)
Slasher Film
Ridiculous backwoods slasher film featuring a no-name cast that frequently collapses into the laughable
Mr. Brooks (2007)
Serial Killer
Overlooked effort where Kevin Costner, in a surprisingly dark and undeniably effective turn, plays an everyday man who has a dark side as a serial killer. A very impressively outing on all levels
Mr Wrong (1985)
Haunted Car/Stalker
New Zealand-made ghost story where Heather Bolton buys a second-hand car only to find it is haunted
Mrs. Claus (2018)
Christmas Slasher Film
While the title makes this sound like a family-friendly film about Santa’s wife, this is actually a Christmas slasher film
Ms 45 (1981)
Raped Woman on a Killing Spree
In his second film, Abel Ferrara turns the rape-revenge film on its head with a mute Zoe Tamerlis taking revenge on men after being raped
Munger Road (2011)
Escaped Killer/Haunted Stretch of Road
Film about an escaped killer and teenagers stalked on a haunted stretch of road. A film that creates mystery about what is happening only to reach a frustrating non-resolution. Without the well-known name of Bruce Davison, this would only be low-budget amateur film
Murder By Numbers (2002)
Forensic Psychology Thriller
Thriller with Sandra Bullock as a burned-out detective investigating two teenagers who have decided to commit a murder as an experiment in amorality
Murder in the Outback (2007)
True Life Australian Outback Murder
A tv movie based on the true-life murder of hitchhiker Peter Falconio and the trial by media of his girlfriend Joanne Lees
Murder-Set-Pieces (2004)
Psycho Film
A psycho film about a serial killing photographer that stalks Las Vegas, this collapses under its determination to be edgy
Murders in the Zoo (1933)
Psycho Zoo Keeper
Highly entertaining film with Lionel Atwill as a wonderfully mad zookeeper who uses his animals to kill people
My Bloody Valentine (1981)
Slasher Film
Classic from the heyday of the slasher film, an effort that was clearly designed to exploit another holiday title in the wake of the successes of Halloween and Friday the 13th. This snappily adapts the slasher formula and does better than most of its ilk in serving it back up
My Bloody Valentine (2009)
Slasher Film
Another in the fad for remakes of 70s/80s films. where the 1981 slasher film gets reworked if this did not come with the 3D gimmick, it would be no more than a routine direct-to-dvd release
My Soul to Take (2010)
Split Personality Slasher/Killer's Resurrected Soul
A misfire from the usually reliable Wes Craven, this drearily traipses through a slasher/supernatural plot that lacks any surprises or Craven’s characteristic atmosphere
Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
Mad Waxworks Curator
Classic horror film, later remade as House of Wax, with Lionel Atwill giving a wonderfully mad performance as a waxworks curator who covers murdered bodies in wax
National Lampoon’s Class Reunion (1982)
Slasher Film Parody
Following the highly successful Animal House, this was the second of the films made using the name of the satirical magazine National Lampoon and is a feeble parody of the slasher film
Natty Knocks (2023)
Halloween Horror
A Halloween horror from a director with a reasonable genre association, this establishes its genre bona fides but then shoots itself in the foot
Natural Born Killers (1994)
Mass Murder Spree
Oliver Stone film with Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as a couple on an ultra-violent mass murder spree. Stone gets heavy-handedly preachy but directs with an excess of style that proves enormously entertaining
The Nature of the Beast (1995)
Road Movie Psycho-Thriller
From Jeepers Creepers director Victor Salva, a gripping road movie thriller that owes somewhat to The Hitcher with a series of psychological games between Lance Henriksen and hitcher Eric Roberts where we can never be sure what is what
Never Talk to Strangers (1995)
Psycho-Sexual Thriller
A tawdry erotic thriller copy of Basic Instinct where psychologist Rebecca De Mornay is drawn in to become involved with possible stalker Antonio Banderas
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)
Giallo Film
A giallo film with Anthony Steffen as an aristocrat who likes to pick up red-haired girls and kill them in the dungeon in his villa, who then becomes haunted by the ghost of his late wife
Night Game (1989)
Cop vs Serial Killer
Police procedural with Roy Scheider as a detective tracking a serial killer who strikes on the nights of big baseball games
Night Hair Child (1972)
Psychopathic Child
Quite a perversely charged film about a psychopathic child with voyeuristic tendencies
Night of the Hunted (2023)
Psycho Sniper
From an Alexandre Aja associate, a reasonably tight thriller about a woman taking shelter in a gas station from a psycho sniper outside
Night of the Reaper (2025)
Babysitter Stalked
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
Night School (1981)
Slasher Film
The only studio-produced entry from the heyday of the slasher film, which gives it a much slicker polish than most of its competitors. Featuring a stunning Rachel Ward in her screen debut.
Nightbreed (1990)
Secret City of Monsters
The second directorial film from Clive Barker is a hugely ambitious work concerning the discovery of a city of monsters – containing some extraordinary makeup creations – but proved a box-office flop
Nightmare in Wax (1969)
Mad Waxworks Curator
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
Nightmares in a Damaged Brain (1981)
Psycho Film
One of the original Video Nasties. In all rather regards, this is a fairly scuzzy looking grindhouse psycho film. Nothing terribly interesting to the show, although it does eventually offer a couple of gory killings, which is what got the censors upset during the day
Nightstalker (2002)
True Life Serial Killer
Film supposedly based on true-life serial killer Richard Ramirez who was nicknamed the Night Stalker. This tosses out the facts in favour of its own fictionalised story
Nightwatch (1994)
Morgue Attendant's Paranoia/Serial Killer
Gripping Danish thriller in which morgue attendant Nicholaj Coster Waldau finds a serial killer is playing games with him. Filled with paranoia, sharp twists and lashings of black humour
Nightwatch (1998)
Morgue Attendant's Paranoia/Serial Killer
Ole Bornedal conducts an English-language remake of his Danish thriller Nattevagten. Rich in black comedy and dark twists, Bornedal demonstrates a mastery of Hitchcockian suspense
Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever (2023)
Nightwatch Sequel
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
Nitram (2021)
True Crime/Portrait of a Mass Murderer
A true crime film based on Martin Bryant who went on a shooting spree, killing 35 people in Port Arthur, Australia in 1996
No One Lives (2012)
Psycho Film
This second English-language film from Japan’s Ryuhei Kitamura came with a good deal of promising advance buzz but upon being seen emerges as a strictly average psycho film that never offers anything outstanding in terms of twists or suspense, nor pushes its audience in any way
No Tears in Hell (2025)
True Crime/Cannibal Murders
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
No Way to Treat a Lady (1968)
Psycho Actor/Comedy Thriller
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
Nothing Underneath (1985)
Giallo Film
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
Nurse 3-D (2013)
Psycho Nurse
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
The Nurse (1997)
Psycho Nurse
Psycho-thriller with Lisa Zane as a nurse seeking vengeance for the death of her father
The Oblong Box (1969)
Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation
One of the films seeking to exploit the fad for Edgar Allan Poe adaptations started by Roger Corman in the 1960s. This has nothing to do with the Poe story and mostly shuffles around the familiar elements of the cycle
The Occupant (2020)
Psycho Ex-Tenant
Spain’s Pastor Brothers have been rising genre name in the last few years. This is a psycho film concerning an unemployed man forced out of his apartment who returns to manipulate the life of the new tenant
Open House (1987)
Radio Talkback Slasher
Shabby entry in the slasher genre with a radio talkback host receiving calls from a killer who is slaughtering female realtors
Opera (1987)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
This may well be the finest of Dario Argento’s giallo thrillers. Set around the production of an opera, this offers a series of murder set-pieces staged with an artistry that is as extraordinary as their sadism
Orphan (2009)
Evil Child
Another variant on the evil child film featuring a maliciously psychopathic Isabelle Fuhrman
Orphan: First Kill (2022)
Evil Child
I was fairly ho-hum about the first Orphan but this is a sequel that entirely surprises you
The Orphan Killer (2011)
Slasher Film
Modern-day run through of the slasher film with the heroine pursued through a school by an axe-wielding maniac. This leaps into the basics with a real brutality and wades in buckets of gore
Otis (2008)
Psycho Film
Film about a big overweight psycho who abducts girls and makes them enact a fantasy of being a cheerleader. Produced by one of the directors of The Blair Witch Project
Out of the Blue (2006)
True Life New Zealand Killing Spree
Film based on a true-life shooting spree in the tiny nowhere New Zealand town of Aramoana
Outside Ozona (1998)
Road Movie Psycho-Thriller
Thriller following several different people as they drive towards the title Texas town, while a serial killer calls into an all-night radio talkback
P2 (2007)
Imprisonment Psycho-Thriller
Tense and twist-filled thriller with Rachel Nichols trapped inside a carpark building by a psychopathic Wes Bentley
Pacific Heights (1990)
Psycho Tenant
Thriller in which landlords Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith’s lives are terrorised by psychopathic tenant Michael Keaton
The Pact (2012)
Haunting and Serial Killer
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
The Pact II (2014)
Haunting and Serial Killer
The Pact was a modest and rather effective ghost story about a serial killer hiding inside the walls of a house. This seems to be straining to find some way to justify any relevance a sequel – for one, where do you go with the premise? Another killer hiding inside a different family home?
Pandemonium (1982)
Slasher/Horror Parody
The slasher film only really came into existence in 1980 but was so prolifically milked that by even two years later it had spawned its own sub-cycle of parodies. This hits in with a wacky anything goes absurdity but, aside from an amusing Carrie spoof, little of it is funny
Parasomnia (2008)
Girl With Sleeping Sickness/Dream-Invading Serial Killer
William Malone, the director of House on Haunted Hill remake, makes an interestingly different film about a girl who has spent most of her life asleep being pursued by a genius killer who invades her dreams
Party Hard, Die Young (2018)
Slasher Film
From the director of Attack of the Lederehosen Zombies, a slasher film set at a rave event
Party Line (1989)
Phone Chatline Psycho-Thriller
Tawdry thriller about brother and sister psychos who lure people from a phone sex line and kill them
Peeping Tom (1960)
Psycho Film
Classic psycho film that came out the same year as Psycho but was killed in release being seen as morally repugnant. From the great Michael Powell, this features a killer obsessed with filming women as he kills them and finds an uncomfortable brilliance in the way it blurs a director’s obsessions and a viewer’s complicity in what they see on screen
A Perfect Getaway (2009)
Tourist Psycho-Thriller
David Twohy has shown himself a standout screenwriter and director with the Riddick films but came unstuck with this effort where tourists in Hawaii come to believe their traveling companions are wanted killers. A film killed by far-fetched twists
The Perfect Nanny (2000)
Psycho Babysitter
Modest psycho-thriller with Tracy Nelson as a psychopathic babysitter who kills all in the way to romancing her employer
Perfect Prey (1998)
Serial Killer Thriller
When the Bough Breaks was one of the better 1990s serial killer thrillers; though it didn’t need it, this is a sequel, albeit with a completely different cast. While the original was clever, this falls into drawing too much from The Silence of the Lambs, the inspiration behind both films
The Perfect Wife (2001)
Psycho-Thriller
Psycho-thriller with Shannon Sturges as a woman who marries Perry King with the intent of destroying his life
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
Killer with a Hyper-Acute Sense of Smell
An extraordinary Tom Tykwer film starring Ben Whishaw as an 18th Century man who has a hyper-acute sense of smell
Personal Column (1947)
Psycho-Thriller
Psycho-thriller with an unknown Lucille Ball as a showgirl used by Scotland Yard as a lure to trap a maniac killer
Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare (2025)
Horror Version of Peter Pan
From the people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, this is the horror version of Peter Pan. And good grief, does this go dark with Peter as a child abductor and Tinkerbell who shoots up ‘fairy dust’ through a needle
Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954)
Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation/Trained Killer Ape
A version of Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue that was made for the original 3D fad. That is to say, it is more a case of some elements of the story having been shuffled around into a new story with Karl Malden as a mad zookeeper using a hypnotised ape to kill women
Phenomena (1985)
Giallo Thriller/Insect Telepathy
Another of Dario Argento’s giallo thrillers filled with all his trademark artily extravagant deaths. At the centre of the film is a teenage Jennifer Connelly who can psychically communicate with insects
Pieces (1983)
Slasher Film
A venture into the slasher film from hack Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon that features utterly surreal bad dialogue and copious amounts of blood
Pig Killer (2022)
True-Life Serial Killer
A film based on true-life Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton who fed his victim’s bodies to his pigs
Piggy (2022)
Plus-Size Teen and Her Tormentors
Raw and undeniable brutal film in which a plus-size teenage girl forms a relationship with a serial killer after he abducts her tormentors
Piglady (2023)
True Crime
A True Crime film where the story of a woman who killed two men and fed their remains to her pigs is essentially turned into a slasher movie
Pitch Black (2000)
Planetary Survival
A gripping and particularly well conceived planetary survival story. The film that launched Vin Diesel’s career and he has never been better than as the lethal, tight-lipped serial killer Riddick
Playing With Dolls: Havoc (2017)
Slasher Film
Third of a trilogy of slasher films where people isolated at a cabin are stalked by a hulking maniac in a barbed wire mask. This mixes the formula of the previous films up in some interesting ways
Pool Party Massacre (2017)
Slasher Comedy
Possibly the most entertaining no-budget movie ever made. Essentially shot around the director’s own home for a bunch of traded favours, this is a slasher film where the cast have been encouraged to plant tongue-in-cheek and go over the top with frequently sidesplitting results