With the second season of ‘Mindhunter’ (2018) currently streaming on Netflix and excitement already bubbling for the third, it’s time to look at our fascination with serial killers, in general, since it certainly didn’t start last year with David Fincher’s latest directorial masterpiece. For decades, we have been ravenously consuming true crime and fiction stories about them, in books and on the screen. 

From a psychological point of view, the public’s appetite for the macabre has existed since antiquity. The gladiator fights of the ancient Roman Empire, the hangings of suspected witches in Salem and all across North America, the public executions in Britain that went on until the end of the 19th century—these are mere snippets that prove our species’ attachment to violence and bloodshed. When we cannot enact it ourselves, we take pleasure in watching others, specifically authorities, do it. We revel in the violent punishment of evildoers. It is an indisputable fact and an aspect of mankind that we may find unpalatable.

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With the evolution of forensic sciences and investigative techniques, as well as the elimination of public executions from all over the Western world, our attention has been captured by serial murderers, mostly due to the number of victims and often nightmarish ways in which they are killed. These individuals have often caused frenzies, mainly because their crimes seemed so random. Anyone could fall prey to a Jeffrey Dahmer or the BTK Killer.

According to the Crime Classification Manual (whose authors include John Douglas, the original ‘Mindhunter’), a serial killer is an offender who has killed more than three people across different locations, with cooling-off periods in-between each murder.

It often happens that these killers gain incredible notoriety thanks to the police’s public efforts to hunt them down. The authorities’ appeals to the general public through the press and the media inevitably turn these people into infamous, larger-than-life monsters. Of course, the authorities’ sole interest is to capture the killers before they create more victims. The newspapers and journals, however, spring for notoriety, which, in turn, feeds this public craving for morbid details of the actual crimes. 

Today, there are several names in the serial killer hall of fame. Men (and a few women) of a dark, legendary status. Jack the Ripper of Victorian London. H.H Holmes. John Wayne Gacy, nicknamed The Killer Clown. George Metesky, also known as The Mad Bomber. Aileen Wuornos, considered to be the most famous female serial killer. The mysterious Zodiac Killer. Ted Bundy. Charles Manson, the biggest monster of them all. Jeffrey Dahmer. Ed Kemper, best known as The Co-Ed Killer. The list continues, and it is filled with horror—eerily fascinating horror.

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‘Mindhunter’ and the study of monsters.

Forensic psychology has made great progress by studying these murderous behemoths, mainly through the efforts of John Douglas, Robert Ressler, Roy Hazelwood and several other agents behind the Behavioural Analysis Unit of the FBI. The entire project started out as a study based on interviews with serial killers, combined with professional psychiatric and psychological insights, provided mostly by Ann Burgess and her colleagues. It is thanks to them that today we are able to identify patterns and capture serial killers before they reach a devastating death toll—and these are the heroes portrayed in ‘Mindhunter’, as well.

But the critically acclaimed series is not the only one tackling the subject, though it does it exceptionally well. Long before Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, and Anna Torv teamed up to learn about serial killers in ‘Mindhunter’, the cinematic universe had already delivered chilling oeuvres such as Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ (1960), starring Anthony Perkins; ‘Monster’ (2003), directed by Patty Jenkins, which earned Charlize Theron an Academy Award; and Jonathan Demme’s ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991), based on Thomas Harris’s novel, featuring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. 

Today, ‘Mindhunter’ is not alone in portraying psychopaths. But all these productions share a common denominator: they bring the serial killer forth in all his wretched glory. They give us a glimpse into the most deranged of minds while pushing us to make a clear distinction between ‘clinically insane’ and ‘psychopath’. Serial killers are rarely psych-ward material, and they’re often incredibly charming.

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‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile’, and yet, pants-off charming.

Zac Efron offered a surprisingly good portrayal of Ted Bundy in ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile’ (2019), but people felt as though the movie was glorifying the ill-famed serial killer through the casting of Mr Efron. What they didn’t immediately understand was that Ted Bundy was exactly as the actor portrayed him—charming, handsome, a true ladies’ man. No one at the time could even believe that he had been the one responsible for more than thirty murders. Even Elizabeth Koepfler, his girlfriend, could not be convinced otherwise, until she learned he’d actually tried to kill her once. The tumultuous relationship led to her writing ‘The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy’, which was the basis for ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile’.

And if Mrs Koepfler’s book and Mr Efron’s performance wasn’t enough, Netflix gave us another slice of Ted Bundy through ‘Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes’. What eventually got him arrested was his own inability to hide his tracks. Truth be told, despite his talent in leading a double life as a loving partner and a remorseless serial killer, Ted Bundy’s only advantage was his charm. He lacked the intelligence and critical thinking to continuously evade the authorities—unlike the Zodiac killer or Ed Kemper, for example. The latter was only caught after he surrendered himself. With every escape from prison, Ted Bundy sank deeper into his own despair, eventually devolving and killing a twelve-year-old girl.

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‘Zodiac’ and the allure of the uncaught. 

David Fincher tried his hand at serial killers before with ‘Zodiac’ (2007), starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., and Mark Ruffalo. Given that the real Zodiac was never found, the film focused on the authorities and the media’s efforts to capture him. But even here, we find ourselves drawn to the story—people kept dying, viciously shot in their cars, while the Zodiac Killer sent puzzles to taunt the police.

There have been numerous documentaries that explore this subject, to the point of absolute exhaustion. It’s how we know more about the killers than we do about their victims. And yet, we still can’t get enough. We’ve brought serial killers into the realm of fiction, too, with ‘Psycho’ and ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ being just two examples. However, the deeper we delve into the psyche of such monsters, the more fascinated we become.

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‘Barry’, the sympathetic hitman.

HBO’s downright superb drama gives us Bill Hader as a hitman from the Midwest who moves to Los Angeles in order to become an actor. While the main character may not immediately come across as a psychopath, he is just that. 

Barry is just smarter because he’s actually making money from killing people. Sure, he wants to explore the city’s theatre arts scene, but his true nature simmers just beneath the surface. He might have good intentions, but he is a serial killer. Even so, we can’t help but like him!

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‘Killing Eve’, or liking the villain a little too much.

Created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge for BBC America, ‘Killing Eve’ has another serial-killer-turned-professional-hitwoman as its central character, exquisitely played by Jodie Comer, going head to head with Sandra Oh’s Eve Polastri. 

We’re drawn to Villanelle. She’s beautiful, resourceful, and incredibly good at her job. We can’t look away, even though we know she’s basically as bad as Ted Bundy, Ed Kemper and any of the other ‘industry greats’, so to speak.

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‘Dexter’, our first favourite serial killer.

Showtime’s ‘Dexter’ is yet another prime example as to why serial killers as main characters works so well. As viewers, we felt better about ourselves knowing that Dexter, so wickedly portrayed by Michael C. Hall, only targeted other murderers. 

We were even compelled to consider him an avenging dark angel of sorts, even though he, too, is basically a textbook psychopath. We rooted for him. We certainly didn’t want him to get caught. A similar effect stemmed from ‘Hannibal’ (2013), as well, whose main character—the renowned psychiatrist turned serial killer, is superbly played by Mads Mikkelsen. These guys are terrifyingly irresistible…

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‘True Detective’ and the fight for justice.

Despite this appeal of serial killer, we do appreciate the hunt. We appreciate cinematic productions where the murderers get caught almost as much as we love the antiheroes who don’t get caught. In that sense, Nic Pizzolatto’s HBO drama, ‘True Detective’, stands out. 

The seasonal anthology series, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, among others, tackles the professional and personal lives of the police officers who chase the very darkness we’re so drawn to.

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‘The Fall’, or how the cat chases the mouse and vice versa.

Taking place in Belfast, ‘The Fall’ follows the incomparable Gillian Anderson as a policewoman trying to take down Jamie Dornan’s seemingly passionate father, who is, in fact, a serial killer. For the umpteenth time, we find ourselves wedged between the hunter and the murderer, drawn to both thanks to their complexity.

It is the same with real serial killers. The terrible nature of their crimes is only outmatched by their personalities. We’re continuously astonished by the fact that people who seem completely normal are capable of such terror.

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‘Criminal Minds’, the fictional compendium of serial murder.

Before ‘Mindhunter’, ‘Criminal Minds’ (2005) had already established itself as the go-to source of morbid entertainment—a cornucopia of serial killers stretched across thirteen seasons, now going into its final lap. Most of it is inspired from John Douglas and Robert Ressler’s work with the FBI, though Mr Douglas does mention in the eponymous book on which ‘Mindhunter’ is based that profilers did not run around, guns blazing and breaking down doors in order to catch serial killers. Most of their work revolved around close collaboration with the local police and studying the crime scenes.

Even so, ‘Criminal Minds’ has been, by far, the biggest fix for serial killer aficionados worldwide. And while that might be a relatively troubling thing to say, these productions aren’t just well written, they’re also responsible for bringing some awareness to the general public, where serial murders are involved.

Thanks to them, even we are capable of recognizing certain patterns.

EDMUND EMILE KEMPER, ‘THE CO-ED KILLER’. IMAGE CURTESY OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY SHERRIFF’S OFFICE

The appeal of serial killers will never die out. As evidenced by the many titles above, along with the honourable mentions, it is clear that we cannot get enough of such complex stories. In many ways, fiction is far more interesting than reality—at least on the screen, the serial killers come across as slightly more three-dimensional than their real-life counterparts.

This fervour isn’t waning, either. More and more true crime stories are coming out. The ‘Serial’ podcast broke records with move than 70 million downloads, a figure never before seen in this particular medium. 

Michelle McNamara’s posthumous book, ‘I’ll Be Gone in the Dark’, was completed by crime writer Paul Haynes, investigative journalist Billy Jensen, and Mrs McNamara’s widower, comedian Patton Oswalt. It wasn’t just a bestseller, it also helped Sacramento Police, who arrested James DeAngelo, a 72-year-old former police officer and the very Golden State Killer that Mrs McNamara had spent years trying to track down. HBO is currently producing a documentary based on the book.

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There are museum exhibits about famous serial killers taking place almost every year, most of them sold out—as was the case of the Museum of London in October 2015, when 600 objects from the Metropolitan Police’s crime archives went on show. Harold Schechter, a true crime writer best known for his book ‘Deviant’ (published in 1989 and telling the true story of Ed Gein, the so-called ‘original Psycho’), considers this popular interest ‘a kind of cultural hysteria’.

While serial killers are responsible for less than 1% of murders in the United States, our fascination exceeds our concern as we continue to build this mythology of evil and murder. 

In the end, it is our way of accepting that none of the monsters we create through legends, folklore, books or films come close to the monsters that real people are capable of becoming. After all, and as Joseph Conrad was quoted in the very first episode of ‘Criminal Minds’, saying: ‘The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness’.

The western genre is not back, since it was never really dead, to begin with. Recently, several brilliant minds of contemporary cinema have tried their hand at bringing us tales from the scraggy and ever-dangerous Wild West, including Joel and Ethan Coen‘s ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ (2018). But it was ‘The Sisters Brothers’, by Jacques Audiard, that showed us how a whole new level of the genre can be reached–a level we didn’t even know existed.

In short, a Frenchman took a Canadian novel, filmed it in Spain, Romania, and France, then came out as one of the big winners of last year’s Venice Film Festival, depicting a most realistic, equal parts gritty and charming dark comedy set in America, during the Gold Rush.

But the film is much more than a mish-mash of multicultural efforts that successfully translated into a heartfelt ode to the classic western. ‘The Sisters Brothers’ is, quite frankly, a dollop of surrealism displayed through Jacques Audiard‘s outsider lens of amusement, as he pokes fun at his supposedly dangerous and highly skilled assassins, Charles and Eli Sisters.

CREDIT: ANNAPURNA PICTURES

Based on the eponymous book by Patrick deWitt, ‘The Sisters Brothers’ follows two brothers and hired guns, played by Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly, on their long and complicated journey as they track down a certain Hermann Kermit Warm, exquisitely portrayed by Riz Ahmed, with the help of Jake Gyllenhaal as the pretentious private detective named John Morris.

The screenplay, crafted by Jacques Audiard and Thomas Bidegain, gives us a glimpse into the lives and relationships of Phoenix’s Charlie Sisters and Reilly’s Eli Sisters, whom we follow from the mountain ranges of Oregon all the way down the California coastline and into the heart of San Francisco.

We’re taken along for the ride through the dark and scruffy Wild West, and we’re surprised when we realise that the two gunmen, despite their apparent proficiency in their field, usually have no clear idea about what it is they’re doing. It is sheer dumb luck and a hiccup of fortune that they manage to survive their circumstances, as they spend most of their time bickering over topics that range from trivial to ridiculous. In one instance, Eli is quite miffed that his brother gets more money for the same job, thus making him the ‘lead killer’.

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The Commodore, a mysterious figure with no lines in the movie, is played by Rutger Hauer. While we never hear him speak, we can tell that he’s someone to be feared and with remarkably deep pockets, which is probably why Eli and Charlie Sisters do his bidding. Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly are masters of their craft, giving us two fascinatingly different people, bound by blood and the years they’ve spent together, killing the Commodore’s targets for money.

Reilly is the melancholic and downright tired Eli, who longs to settle down and try something that does not require all this unpleasant murdering. His heart aches for a certain lady teacher, from whom he’s kept a memento–which he’s adamant that it be referred to by its proper term, a ‘shawl’. He carries it with him, carefully folding it every evening and sniffing her perfume, still lingering in the fabric. Eli is fascinated by the progress of technology and civilisation. He’s the first of the Sisters lineage to use a toothbrush, and we’re almost as giddy and he is when he discovers the flushing toilet in their San Francisco hotel room.

CREDIT: MAGALI BRAGARD

Charlie, on the other hand, is the simpler fellow. Phoenix is a tour de force, giving us a heavy drinker who doesn’t see the point in or the appeal of doing anything other than killing people for money. He bears the emotional weight of his father’s death, drowning his demons and utter loneliness in alcohol. John Morris’s pompous letters irk him, and he’d love nothing more than to put a bullet through his head, simply for using those fancy words to talk down on him and his brother. However, when faced with a better financial opportunity, presented by none other than Hermann Kermit Warm and the aforementioned John Morris, we witness a radical change in Charlie.

The Gold Rush is realistically depicted in this story, and Charlie is an accurate embodiment of greed turning a man foolish enough to make horrible decisions that impact not only his well being but also the lives of those around him. In the end, ‘The Sisters Brothers’ leaves us with a bittersweet taste, like any good tale about redemption and the diverse pits of the human soul.

CREDIT: MAGALI BRAGARD

Needless to say, the performances were stellar from all points of view. Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly gave us the Sisters Brothers in all their unwashed, flea-ridden glory, while Riz Ahmed and Jake Gyllenhaal’s dynamic made for a fascinating contrast. Not even their first time on the set together (they’d previously worked together on ‘Nightcrawler’ back in 2014), Ahmed and Gyllenhaal are mesmerising as the foresighted chemist and the overly educated lawman.

Aside from portraying Eli Sisters with such gruff ingenuity, John C. Reilly was the one who optioned the film rights to Patrick deWitt’s novel back in 2011, thus establishing himself as the driving force behind the movie before he was even cast as Eli Sisters. From thereon, Mr Audiard and Mr Bidegain did their marvellous job of adapting a Booker-nominated book into what brought the audience to a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival of 2018.

‘The Sisters Brothers’ was nominated for a Golden Lion in the Best Film category, but it was Jacques Audiard who walked away with a Silver Lion for Best Director. Before that, the film had also swept the César and Lumiere Awards in France, gathering trophies for cinematography, production design, directing, and sound.

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It goes without saying that each of these awards was more than well deserved. The cinematography, for example, stunningly executed by Benoît Debie, follows its own path away from the footsteps of John Ford, deep into the Wild West’s darkest corners with close-up shots that force us to peer into the very souls of Mr Audiard’s characters. Mr Debie keeps us in the moment and binds us to Charlie and Eli Sisters, not to mention Hermann Kermit Warm and John Morris. John Wayne might’ve scoffed at ‘The Sisters Brothers’, but, for this day and age, the old western tropes may not have worked as well as they used to. 

Perhaps one of the film’s highlights, at least in this writer’s opinion, is the very end sequence at the Sisters’ family home, which is a single, continuous take. The actors had to switch costumes off-camera to create the impression of time passing, which, in turn, was splendidly conveyed and fluid.

CREDIT: ANNAPURNA PICTURES

Another noteworthy aspect of ‘The Sisters Brothers’, besides its screenplay, performances, and cinematography, was the production design, helmed by Michel Barthélémy. While Jacques Audiard gave us dark humour and brutal visuals in its quest to display the realisms of living in that age–complete with the wonders of discovering civilization’s more modern perks of the flourishing Golden Rush era, Mr Barthélémy, along with his talented team of art directors and set designers made it all feel, not just look, real.

The immersion was achieved through faithful reproductions of Oregon’s saloons at the time, through careful designs of San Francisco’s streets and hotels–making it seem like a wonder of the mid 19th century, much like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or the Library of Alexandria in their time. To further complete the accuracy of the Gold Rush period, dozens of make-up artists and hairstylists were brought in, breathing literal life into Milena Canonero’s costumes.

With a playful, moody, and oftentimes deeply emotional score composed by Alexandre Desplat, there were plenty of reasons for ‘The Sisters Brothers’ to become an independent-film-turned-box-office-darling. Alas, despite its glowing reviews and impressive festival victory laps, it only grossed $7 million against its $38 million budget.

Even so, Jacques Audiard, better known for ‘A Prophet’ (2009), ‘Rust and Bone’ (2012), and ‘Dheepan’ (2015), has managed to deliver a cinematic story filled with gorgeously peculiar and unexpected twists through ‘The Sisters Brothers’–incidentally his first English-language film.

While it could easily be considered a personalised homage to the western genre that gave us ‘Stagecoach’ and ‘The Magnificent Seven’, among many others, Mr Audiard’s creation stands well on its own, offering a brutal, sincere, and mesmerizing version of the ol’ West.