The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Harold Schechter, David Everitt Page A

claims to be but as a genuine serial killer. According to John Douglas, former head of the BSU, the Unabomber’s demands—as expressed in the lengthy manifesto he sent to the media—suggest a “desire for manipulation, domination, and control typical of serial killers.”
    “The most important radical aim is to make her suffer, since there is no greater power over another person than that of inflicting pain on her.”
    A serial killer, explaining his motives
    M OVIES
    People have always been intrigued by the kind of homicidal maniacs we now call serial killers, and every time a new mass medium has been invented, it’s been used to gratify this primal fascination. In pre-electronic days, the “penny press” dished up wildly lurid accounts of grisly crimes, complete with graphic engravings of the murder victims. One of the earliest recordings produced for the Edison phonograph featured an actor reading the shocking confessions of H. H. Holmes , the notorious nineteenth-century “Torture Doctor.” When radio became popular, listeners thrilled to such programs as Arch Obler’s Lights Out (which also paid tribute to Holmes in a famous episode called “Murder Castle”). And ghoulish killers began stalking the screen virtually from the moment that motion pictures were invented.
    Ever since the enormous commercial and critical success of Jonathan Demme’s cinematic version of The Silence of the Lambs, Hollywood has churned out a slew of slick and, for the most part, instantly forgettable serial-killer movies—so many that a whole book could be written on the subject. As a matter of fact, a whole book has been written on the subject: Robert Cettl’s Serial Killer Cinema (McFarland Publishers, 2003), an indispensable reference volume for any hardcore slasher fan.
    With almost a century’s worth of maniac movies to choose from, narrowing the list down to a mere handful is a thankless task. But if we were organizing our annual Serial Killer Film Festival, here—in alphabetical order—is the baker’s dozen we’d select:
    Deep Red (1976). A truly unsettling gore film from Italian horror maestro Dario Argento. David Hemmings (looking highly dissolute) stars as aBritish pianist on the trail of a deranged killer in Rome. The soundtrack alone is scary enough to give you nightmares for a week.
    Fear City (1984). A shamefully underrated thriller by director Abel Ferrara, about a serial killer stalking topless dancers in the sleazy heart of Manhattan. The first-rate cast includes Tom Berenger, Billy Dee Williams, Melanie Griffith, Rae Dawn Chong, Michael Grasso, and Maria Conchita Alonso.
    Frenzy (1972). After a severe falling off with such turkeys as Torn Curtain and Topaz, Alfred Hitchcock returned to form in his penultimate film, a witty, stylish, and genuinely shocking thriller about a British serial killer loosely modeled after the real-life psycho known as “Jack the Stripper.”
    Halloween (1978). John Carpenter draws on every teen horror legend ever told in this brilliant low-budget chiller that was followed by various lesser sequels and countless rip-offs.
    Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990). Very possibly the most deeply disturbing—not to say harrowing—serial-killer movie ever made. A cinematic tour de force, but definitely not for everyone. Based on the ostensible exploits of Henry Lee Lucas .
    M (1931). Fritz Lang’s riveting masterpiece about a serial child killer terrorizing Weimar Berlin. Loosely based on the career of Peter Kürten , the movie made an international star of Peter Lorre as the pudgy personification of psychopathic evil who is hunted down and tried by the criminal underworld.
    Maniac (1980). A truly repulsive movie but—for that very reason—worth seeing, since it does such an effective job of capturing the sickening, sordid reality of serial murder. Starring the late lamented Joe Spinnell as a Norman Bates-like character who decks out his private collection of mannequins with the