The Serial Killer in Cinema

Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie, Basil Blackwell, 1989.

Ressler Robert K. Schachtman Tom , I Have Lived In The Monster: Inside the Mind of the World's Most Notorious Serial Killers, St Martin's Paperbacks, New York, 1997, p.1.

Although a ‘wide variety of motivation and behaviour amongst serial killers’ is acknowledged, researchers tend to focus more upon their similarities, drawn from information gathered at crime scenes, interviews, and various psychological assessments. Douglas John Olshaker Mark , Journey Into Darkness, Heinemann, 1997, p.36.

This cooling off period may take several hours or years. Schechter Harold Everitt David , The A—Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, Pocket Books, New York, 1996, p.69.

Investigators typically find at least one but usually multiple examples of what they term the ‘homicidal triangle’ (or ‘triad’). Research into serial killers’ childhood experiences revealed that virtually all included ‘enuresis — or bed-wetting — at an inappropriate age, starting fires, and cruelty to animals or other children’. Douglas John Olshaker Mark , Journey Into Darkness, Heinemann, 1997, p.36. Other predictors include abusive or dysfunctional families, a long record of misdemeanours, problems with authority, and interest in aggressive or violent images and pornography. Killers tend to murder within their own ethnic group, and target a particular type of victim, most often sexually desired or otherwise compelling strangers.

See, for example, Delgado Richard (ed), Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1995, and Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty , in Harasym Sarah , (ed.), The Post-Colonial Subject: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, Routledge, 1990.

‘Addressing the Crisis of Whiteness: Reconfiguring White Identity in a Pedagogy of Whiteness’ in Kincheloe Joe Steinberg Shirley R. Rodriguez Nelson M. Chennault Ronald E. (eds), White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1998, p.5.

Grosz Elizabeth , Volatile Bodies: Toward A Corporeal Feminism, Allen and Unwin, 1994, p.ix.

Foucault Michel , ‘Disciplinary Power and Subjection’ in Lukes Steven (ed.), Power: A Radical View, Blackwell, 1986, p.241.

hooks, bell, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, Routledge, 1994.

Wiegman Robyn , American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender, Duke University Press, 1995, p.6.

Newitz Annalee , ‘Serial Killers, True Crime, and Economic Performance Anxiety’ in Sharrett Christopher (ed.), Mythologies of Violence in Postmodern Media, Wayne State University Press, 1999.

Fuss Diana , ‘Monsters of Perversion: Jeffrey Dahmer and The Silence of the Lambs’ in Garber Marjorie Matlock Jann Walkowitz Rebecca L. (eds), Media Spectacles, Routledge, 1993.

Seltzer Mark , Serial Killers: Death and Life in America's Wound Culture, Routledge, 1998, p.10.

Tithecott Richard , Of Men and Monsters: Jeffrey Dahmer and the Construction of the Serial Killer, The University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin, 1997, p.6.

Seltzer Mark , citing Methvin Eugene H. in Serial Killers: Death and Life in America's Wound Culture, Routledge, 1998, p.10.

‘The Profile of the Serial Killer’ in Seltzer , above, ref 16.

Halberstam Judith , Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters, Duke University Press, 1995, p.162.

Arendt Hannah , Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Faber and Faber, 1963, p.253.

Arendt Hannah , above, ref 19, p.253.

C. Fred Alford notes, ‘[n]o wonder Arendt's thesis of the banality of evil is so threatening. It takes the proportion out of evil, making its cause unequal to its effect, making light of our suffering, revealing our tormentor to be not Satan but a ridiculous fool.’ What Evil Means To Us, Cornell University Press, 1997, p.135.

See Cynthia Freeland for an excellent discussion of ‘realist horror’ in The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror, Westview Press, 2000.

Freeland discusses the ‘familiar empty formula’ of the explanation of the serial killer, above, ref 22, p.179.

These examples are from McIntosh Peggy Dyer Richard , White, Routledge, 1997, p.8.

The predictive nature of this statistic has been qualified in recent years due to interracial killers such as Heidnik Gary Dahmer Jeffrey .

Razack Sherene H. , Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms, University of Toronto Press, 1998.

There is a tendency to individualise crime if a white perpetrator is involved, downplaying environmental influences. Kaminer Wendy , It's All the Rage: Crime and Culture, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995.