In some way serial killer movies in the last eight years or so have kind of been lumped in with drama or horror and haven’t really been their own genre completely. There are those movies that still seem to straddle the line between one genre and another but very few that have been completely one way or the other. What seems different is that the violence, gore, and story line that goes with the movie seems inclined to shock and awe the viewer instead of puzzling them as to figure out just who the killer is and what their motivations are. Some movies manage to push this agenda still and don’t take away as much from the overall point of the film, but then there are those that are all about the shock factor and the ability to make the viewers jump in their seats. A good serial killer movie leaves you feeling just a little less safe when you leave the movie theater, until you realize it was a work of fiction.
Her are some of the best serial killer movies in the past several years.
5. Texas Chainsaw 3D
It feels safe to say that people got kind of tired of Texas Chainsaw and everything that was related to it as a collective groan seemed to go up when this one came out. But despite that fading interest the story is one that is actually kind of impressive since it creates a legacy of sorts that instills the belief that the nightmare isn’t over. This is a tale that can be brought back again and again since it’s a fairly open story that doesn’t have the kind of strict guidelines that might otherwise make it inflexible and unable to accommodate a tweak here and there to the narrative. By leaving it open-ended as it was at the finish this story could keep going and change just enough to remain entertaining.
4. The Frozen Ground
Some of the most terrifying movies are based on real-life events that have taken place in the past and have been coming out as movies to entertain the public. It seems a morbid thought to entertain anyone with tales of such evil individuals that have done such vile things, but it’s almost as though the tale needs to be told. Hansen was a rather vicious individual that at the same was thought to be a pillar of the community in Anchorage, Alaska. All that time however he was raping and murdering young women and no one suspected a thing until someone finally made the link between him and the disappearances.
3. The Snowtown Murders
Another story based on real-life events, the happening in Snowtown was something that was horrific simply because it took just one man and his homophobic and violent ways to turn an entire community on its ear and have them just about eating out of his hand. The manner in which he took after people for their slights and apparent shortcomings was nothing less than terrifying since he had a very dogged and unfiltered approach to what he thought of as justice. Jamie, the young man that was taken under John’s wing, eventually became so desensitized to the violence that he helped and even facilitated the killing of several people.
2. The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo
To some people this story might be long, complicated, and not all that interesting. But if you can hang with the plot and really get into it there is a story here that is something both intriguing as well as enticing since it’s something that goes rather deep and into a dark place that many folks might not fully understand but some can at least recognize from their own personal musings. Seeing as how it all begins with a libel lawsuit and then devolves into a dark and twisting passage that leads to murder, deceit, and personal anguish it seems fair to say that while this film doesn’t hit on all the right notes for some people it’s still worth the effort to watch.
1. The Iceman
Like always the movies do take liberties with real-life stories like this, but the Iceman was one of the most notorious killers in his day and had a run that lasted for well onto 22 years. In his time he killed over a hundred people by his own admission, some that were contracted out to him and others that weren’t. Whatever made him the way he was the Iceman was someone that didn’t value human life nearly as much as the average person did. Yet the only regrets he ever had were putting his family in danger and hurting them when the truth came out. How a man like this could exist knowing what he was doing for a living is hard to fathom.
Sometimes the scariest movies are the ones based on reality.
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