Abraxas' "Types of Killers" marathon

[abraxas]

This is the second time Ive done this marathon, but this particular one is a little special. It will include both real and fictional killers in a wider verity.



List of Killers:

1. The Loner type: One Hour Photo
2. Vigilante: Death Wish
3. Spree Killer: Falling Down
4. Team Killers: The Hillside Strangler
5. Movies based on real killers: Henry Portrait of a serial killer
6. Fictional characters based on real killers: Texas Chainsaw Massacre
7. Satanic killer: Night Stalker
8. Foreign serial killers: Citizen X

ONE HOUR PHOTO

I love this movie, it is really disturbing and creepy and yet so simple. There is no blood or graphic violence and still it holds its own with the bloodiest and goriest horror movies of recent dates. It is without a doubt the greatest performance Robin Williams has ever given, better in fact then most legitimate "dramatic actors" I still remember seeing it in the theater and feeling that I could really relate to the character, the loneliness and feelings of alienation that he felt. He is really subdued in the film, which makes the times where he gets angered all the more affective and intense.

As a killer he is very much the loner type who lives in his own world, a world which he has invented and wears around him in order to hide his psychosis. It is perhaps incorrect to call him a killer, he is more like a killer in the making.

[abraxas]

Just finished Death Wish, one of series of three films which follow the vigilante exploits of Paul Kersey, who walks the streets of New York hunting down criminal types. His wife had been killed by muggers, and now he seeks to kill every low life that might get in his way. I believe there are three films in the Death Wish series, the second and third are the best, although the first two are more realistic. Death Wish 3 was made in the days when Rambo was single handedly killing 300 or more villains at a time, and so the third film was a little less realistic......but it was a great movie.

FALLING DOWN

Another awesome movie about a killer, this time it is what is known as a Spree Killer. This is the type of killer who usually walks around killing people without motive. The victims are almost always strangers to the killer and they are killed without biased as to race or social positions. This type is different from what is commonly called Thrill killer, this is the kind of killer who kills for the mere pleasure it, these are generally sadistic or at least very angry individuals, whereas the Spree killer (sometimes) is the a person who just happens to snap one day. In the case of Falling Down the "stresser" as its known in serial killer lingo, the character goes off the deep end as a result of the general stress of everyday life in the big city, as it were.

Micheal Douglas is the killer and Barbara Hershey is his wife, from whom his character is divorced. The whole plot of the film is simply him trying to get home, in this case to the home of his ex-wife and their child. The question that the audience will inevitably wonder is what he will do when he gets their.

Barbara Hershey is still a damn good looking woman......

[HNT]

You don't see Michael Douglas as a vigilante of sorts? He goes on a violent rampage, but the only person that I actually remember him killing was the neo-nazi guy. And that was pretty much in self defense after he was threatened with rape and potentially murder. Not your typical spree killer in that sense, at least insofar as I'm concerned

[abraxas]

I don't see any vigilante leanings in his character, a true vigilante is one who is driven to murder due to some sort of injustice. Clearly he was not doing those things with anyone else's concerns in mind. You could say that he was railing against he injustice of every day life, yet it was not heart felt, clearly his only motivation was to kill his wife and child. Usually a vigilante would be extremely protective of another family member, seeing that his reason for being a vigilante is usually due to the unjust loss of a loved one.