So far, we have seen killer spheres, rat-faced vampires, failed medical experiments, scrap metal fetishists, hook metal fetishists, dream demons, and human centipedes. This edition of Bounding Into Halloween shines a spotlight on the greatest monster of all: humanity.
We have an extremely long history of committing terrible acts, but we also have a long history of thinking up even more heinous things. I doubt any other animal on this planet sits around and imagines what the scariest predator would be. If they did, I think we all know what kind of animal they’d come up with.
These two features delve into the twisted world of two demented minds with empty souls, but their delusions of grandeur are like a never-ending well.
The House That Jack Built (2018)
Provocateur extraordinaire, Lars von Trier (Dogtooth, Melancholia, Antichrist), really brought his A-game with this incredible 2018 work of psychological horror artistry. Known for being a true defiler of comfort, von Trier’s trigger-happy hands weaved the pitch-black story of a man who envisioned a grand design of the world around him that consisted of death, misery, and even a little taxidermy.
All the actors give amazing (and maybe a little too realistic) performances in this first film of the night, but its stars, Matt Dillon and Bruno Ganz, shine most especially. Prepare yourself before entering The House That Jack Built.
This tale begins with a recently deceased serial killer named Jack (Dillon) walking through Hell and being led down into the lower depths by none other than the ancient Roman poet who guided that other Dante through the Inferno, Virgil (Ganz).
Jack immediately starts chatting the ear off of “Verge” as they tread through the darkness, and that leads him to tell of the long road that led him to perdition. This isn’t the first mortal soul that Verge has met who gets the sudden need to open up about themselves when faced with this situation. So, he listens with bored patience.
We go back to the beginning of Jack’s serial killing career and see the failed architect who was always wound up a little too tight. Each murder is broken up into five “incidents” that start in the late 1970s and go into the late 1980s.
While (apparently) watching these flashbacks with us, the two spirits delve into a deep philosophical debate. Jack tries to justify his actions in life while also connecting them to all of his obsessive-compulsive disorders.
The way the film explains his cycles might have some fellow peeps who struggle with OCD squirming in their seat, but that’s only if the horrible murders don’t do it first!
There’s something about those scenes that are just too authentic, and each one is more brutal than the last. I will never look at a man hunting in the woods with his kids the same way again, nor will I make a cup of Chamomile tea again without thinking of that woman on the floor.
Jack does not make a good case for the house he built and it’s hard to feel sorry for him at his most deserving end. This movie is rough and unnerving, but also a dark masterpiece listed as free over on Roku Street.
Here’s the trailer:
Yep…that Jack was one sick bastard. However, one cannot help but wonder what it would be like to see him rise from Hell to team up with the guy from our next portrait of a serial killer. No, it’s not Henry, but that would be an interesting combo.
American Psycho (2000)
The next hunter of humans has more style, more class, and way more money than that damned Jack. This is the delightfully dark, and delightfully funny, 2000 adaptation of the 1991 horror novel by Bret Easton Ellis.
Directed by Mary Harron and starring Christian Bale in one of his greatest performances, alongside Willem Dafoe, Chloë Sevigny, and Jared Leto as the ill-fated Paul, this is American Psycho.
There is an idea of Patrick Bateman (Bale); some kind of abstraction, but there is no real Bateman – only an entity, something illusory. And though he can hide his cold gaze, and you can shake his hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense your lifestyles are probably comparable…he simply is not there.
This slice-of-life story follows the exploits of a wealthy investment banker who stalks the nighttime streets of New York City in 1987, just looking for a few thrills.
He just wants to do blow in nightclub bathrooms (The 80s!), have the best white business card available, plow prostitutes, plow Carruthers’ (Matt Ross) fiancée Courtney (Samantha Mathis), murder hobos, run naked through an apartment hallway, drop chainsaws on people, and listen to Huey Lewis and the News with Paul.
Because it’s hip to be square!
Where the last movie portrayed an earnest killer with overbearing hubris, this one shoots earnestness in the back of the head with a nail gun. Before Bale would throw on the cape, and cowl for Nolan’s three Batman films, he was Joker Lite: An agent of chaos with no set direction, or regard for human life, but also a lot of fun to watch.
Between Bateman’s inner monologue, and everyone else in that movie, it’s full of so many great lines, and I’m not talking about the ones found in nightclub bathrooms either. Go check out American Psycho on Paramount+, and make sure to return your videotapes!
Here’s the trailer:
