serial killers and cinema
...is portrayed as smart (he only dies because he makes a small mistake). Movie killers and real-life serial killers often suffer from the same problems and violence may be looked at as a substitute for, or a prelude to sex because the killers want to possess their victims and feel physically and mentally powerful that way, while being conscious that they are not. Violence may be a substitute when the killer cannot have sex, and violent sex a substitute when the killer cannot have a real relationship with a woman (which was the case with De Salvo among many others). The movie killer looks all powerful because, in a god-like way, he chooses his victims and decides whether they can live or die. He thus becomes an inspiration to mentally unhealthy individuals. He gives them the clues about how to do it and their imagination may do the rest. 2- The "horrible place": in movies, the victims are sooner or later trapped in a house or a tunnel. The house or tunnel first looks like a safe place but as soon as the killer enters it, it becomes a trap (for example: the bedroom of Neve Campbell's character in Scream). Claustrophobia makes the victims nervous and the atmosphere becomes electric. The victims cannot escape the killer, which excites him. His pleasure comes from feeling superior to his victims. Real killers also take their victims to remote places in order not to be caught, but also because they enjoy hunting and seeing their victims in despair. 3- The weapons: the favorite weapons of movie killers are silent such as knives in Scream or syringes in Copycat. This is also the case with real killers. According to psychiatrists, these weapons may be phallic symbols revealing the killers’ fear of being impotent although many people do not look at it this way. Psychiatrists tend to look at the killers as the "victims" of their own lives (for example, some killers were abused in their childhood) whereas the spectators often think that the killers are invincible. Psychiatrists and spectators often have an opposite point of view and the point of view of the viewers is potentially dangerous because they may want to imitate the killers on the screen. 4- The victims: they are often female and objectified. They appear as trophies of the real or virtual killers, representing their power (their sexual power but also their power of deciding and controlling the others' lives). In Copycat, the victims are used as items for an art work which looks like a still life. 5- The "final girl": she is the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and sees the horror. Although the "final girl" is the one who can get rid of the virtual killer, she may arouse the killer in the movie (and even in real life) because she resists him and she is also the witness of his “job.” In real life she may even be his accomplice. 6- The shock: it is the crucial moment. It is the most frightening and thus the most exciting moment. The shock occurs when the spectator knows that the killer is about to attack a potential victim but he of she is not exactly sure where the killer is, or whether or not the character will survive. In I know What You Did Last Summer, for example, the killer is in the bedroom of character Sarah Michele Gellar and the audience hopes that she will escape. 7- The body: it is mainly the bodies of the victims. It is an object of scrutiny and violence. Why are the bodies women’s bodies? Freud wrote that “neurotic men declare that they feel there is something uncanny about the female genital organs” (Clover 245). Men are both attracted by female bodies because female bodies are different, and terrified because female bodies are a sign of possible castration. Women are both attractive and mysterious, and their body is both attractive and repulsive that is why men are fascinated by them (the process of attraction-repulsion will be further developed in the chapter “Fascination and Evil”). One thing is sure: both movie and living killers want to become other; in The Silence of the Lambs, women are reduced to their skin because the transsexual killer wants to make himself a suit (with his victims’ skin) in order to also become a woman. For movie and living killers, becoming other is very much like becoming all powerful, getting the ultimate power which, once reached, is entirely spent. They want to reach the ultimate power: the power to lose themselves. And it is during this amazing total loss that they experience the most intense pleasures. After this general analysis of the slasher movie, I would like to comment in more detail on the messages which such films contain. Here, one can apply the analyses on pornographic movies to slasher movies because some of the messages of these two genres are quite similar. Catherine Itzin thinks that in pornographic movies, women are reduced to their genital organs, to holes, pieces of meat etc. Obviously, in slasher movies, women are also reduced to holes and pieces of meat. In pornographic films, women are also dehumanized and reduced to animals. Besides, derogatory terms are used, such as “groaning and moaning like a stuck pig” (Itzin, chapter 1). In slasher movies, women are also dehumanized; for example, in Scream and I know What You Did Last Summer, the girls are treated as “bitches” and “whores” by the killers. In Scream, the main killer even says to the character played by Neve Campbell that she is nothing but a whore like her mother, who had sex with the whole village, and that she deserves to die. Itzin is sure that pornography plays an important part in contributing to sexual violence against women because it reinforces sexual abuse, rapes etc. Slasher movies mostly depict men enjoying torturing and murdering women. Some of the messages lying in slashers deal systematically with the objectification and degradation of women. It can thus be concluded that slasher movies also contribute to violence against women. In Pornography (chapter 4), Kappeler shows that, in movies, women are objectified, which implies dehumanization, degradation and violence. In Copycat, women are also objectified in that the killer uses them to reproduce the murders of some famous serial killers such as De Salvo. The dead bodies of these women are placed as objects in a painting whose theme would be a still life. According to Baker, “men’s use of pornography is closely related to the power that men exercise over women in all aspects of our society (economic, social, legal, political and sexual) and to the ways in which men have been conditioned and socialized into a particular form of masculinity.” In Western societies, men are conditioned to behave violently because violence appears an acceptable means for men to achieve success, power and control. Men are expected to be aggressive and unemotional in order to rule the world or else they are not considered as real men but “sissies” (it is the worst insult and shame for many men). In slasher movies, this idea of power and total control over women is also expressed. The murderer kills mainly women. If the murderer kills men, the murders of men are less disgusting. For example, in Scream, men are often killed quickly and their murder is rather clean (not a lot of blood) whereas the girls' bodies are completely opened and the killer walks with some parts of them (sometimes, the victims are still alive). On the contrary, in Seven, men’s bodies are cut to pieces. This difference may come from the fact that the two movies belong to two different sub-genres. Scream is an adolescent horror movie whereas Seven is an adult thriller. In adolescent horror movies, sexuality (especially female sexuality) is in the foreground because sexuality and the female body are the mysterious domains of adolescents’ obsessions. On the contrary, the thriller aims at an older audience. Consequently, in the thriller, sexuality becomes a less important theme. Other themes, such as identity, are further discussed. These various elements of degradation and objectification are differently exploited in horror and pornographic movies but they are definitively present in both. The spectator of pornographic or horror movies receives very erroneous messages concerning sexuality. The long following quotation exposes this problem in detail: A person who learned about human sexuality in the adults only pornography outlets in America would be a person who had learned that sex at home meant sex with one’s children, stepchildren, parents ... pets, and with neighbors, milkmen, plumbers ... who had learned that people take off their clothes and have sex within the first five minutes of meeting one another, who had learned to misjudge the percentage of women who prepare for sex by shaving their pubic hair, having their nipples or labia pierced ... who had learned that about one out of every five sexual encounters involves spanking, whipping, fighting, wrestling, tying, chaining, gagging, or torture, who had learned that more than one in ten sexual acts involves a party of more than two, who had learned that the purpose of ejaculation is that of soiling the mouths, faces, breasts ... who had learned that body cavities were designed for the insertion of foreign objects, who had learned that the anus was a genital to be licked and penetrated, who had learned that urine and excrement are erotic materials, who had learned that the instruments of sex are chemicals, handcuffs, gags, hoods ... who had learned that except with the children, where secrecy was required, photographers and cameras were supposed to be present to capture the action so that it could be spread abroad (emphasis added). In this obviously exaggerated quotation, one can notice that pornographic sex is associated with violence and obscenity. One of the partners, usually the man in heterosexual acts, uses instruments on the other partner(s) such as “handcuffs” or “hoods.” He/She performs cruel practices and brutal acts such as “tying” and “whipping.” Such acts can also be noticed in slasher movies. Nevertheless, a fundamental difference exists between pornographic and slasher movies. In pornographic movies, the death of the performers is symbolic and “inner” as it occurs ¾ or is supposed to occur ¾ during the erotic act (“little death”), while it is “real” and explicit in slasher movies as it happens after a series of horrible long tortures. One may say that, in good slasher movies, death reaches such a degree of performance that it gives a strong illusion of reality while in pornographic movies the “little” death remains only symbolical of the act of dying. Only one sub-genre, called “snuff,” offers the spectators real scenes of violence as the “performers” are indeed murdered against their will (here, the film death and the real death are identical). Snuff movies are produced by underground companies which sell them to psychologically disturbed people in order to make money. During some investigations, the police found that these movies could be sold for more than twenty thousand dollars to unhealthy individuals. Furthermore, in slasher movies, the characters do not consent to have sex and to be tortured which they do in pornographic movies, especially in sado-masochistic scenes. Slasher movies reach indeed extremes as the characters are finally murdered under the eyes of the spectators. In Copycat, the killer imitates some famous serial killers, such as De Salvo, and their techniques: he inserts objects in the victims' vaginas, he ties them up, he cuts their skin etc. Moreover, bodily products such as urine, excrement, and sperm are used to degrade the partner. In Seven, the killer forces his first victim to eat his own excrement and to drink his urine; the killer punishes his victim because he has committed one of the seven deadly sins: gluttony. In snuff movies, as the actors are actually murdered in front of the cameras, sex appears as an instrument which punishes and objectifies women in order to achieve power and domination. In Western societies, sexuality symbolizes individual fulfillment; for example, a man who has many sexual relationships is considered a winner. Women are traditionally supposed to be submissive creatures and to some extent their degradation seems to be common and natural. This point of view seems to be thus directly supported by pornographic and slasher movies which systematically represent the “normal” violence made to women. It thus appears obvious that there is an interaction between reality and fiction. Pornographic and slasher movies can indeed play a role in the evolution of some serial killers’ fantasies. These movies may lead mentally ill people to behave violently because they represent the character who has sex, tortures or kills as a dominating person who is enjoying his acts. The symbolic violence of cinema may increase the violence of the real world. Some serial killers, such as the Zodiac, reproduced scenes or used objects that they saw in movies. According to Cameron and Frazer, when a serial killer like Ted Bundy murders somebody, he does to some extent rewrite “creatively” the narratives from pornographic and slasher movies for his own purpose. It is ra...