i will say an interesting varient on the genre is Suspect Zero.
it delivers beyong the average serial killer movie.



anyway - my initial point wasnt to condemn or condone these movies .. i dont like them in particular myself ... but its a very popular genre that has taken on a life of its own .. propelling the 'genius serial killer' into a monster entity of its own for our times ... at least thats the feeling i get.

time will tell i guess.




as far as origional monsters .. yes i agree phantasm had a unique spin .. and the other was the guy in jeepers creepers ... like the movies or not - he was at least a new bread of critter.

Jeepers Creepers was awful, but I watched it a couple of times anyways because he was a new monster. Glad that someone else was able to appriciate that.

I think there is also a factor that I will call "Lazy Suspension of Disbelief."

Serial killers really exist in real life + they are horrifying. Therefore, as opposed to a fantasy character like Freddy Krueger or Zombie Jason, less effort has to be expended to "sell" the idea that the bad guy is real.

This works in two clever ways. First, the writer doesn't have to try very hard to convince the audience that the threat is something plausible. Second, the audience doesn't have to work very hard to believe the threat is plausible. So, this serial killer mythos encourages laziness on both sides of the coin.

This is just a rant, my opinion means nothing, I just wanted to ramble on about how bored I am with the typical product from this subgenre.

Oh man!
I totally forgot about this movie!
It was stunning and very much underrated IMO.
Has to be the epitome of serial killer movies.
#1 without a doubt.

true true ..

and an even more disturbing thought : i think exposure to these things leave people under the impression that they're somehow more 'in the know' (touches nose) - up on the inner secret workings of the police business...

your forgetting the best 2, zombies and aliens.

Very good point, Alien always scared me. I love slasher movies, I agree that slasher movies AND most movies nowadays are not that good.

My favorite is Halloween and I love the series. I think Movies like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street are great to watch.

I don't nag about whats boring or not I watch it and if I like it then hey I like it, It doesn't necessarily need a golden plot.

And on the zombies I agree also, I love zombie movies.

what do the last 2 posts have to do with anything ?? :confused:

Those posts made the perfect point....short attention spans are a necessity of the Hollywood movie machine.


And I love zombies and aliens too.

Me too! Yeah! I like zombies and also vampires. Give me those oldies but goodies.

Back to that serial killer movie thing: You could call the relationship between the writer and the audience a Symbiotic Stupidity Relationship because each encourages the other to be stupid, and each feeds off of the other's stupidity.

The Serial Killer of the movies is like a comedy writer--endless variations of "creativity" (if you want to call it that) but the output is one basic product.