Mary Harron
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Fresh (2022)
Directed by Mimi Cave
influenced by American Psycho (2000)
Characters Themes Visuals Plot
And Stan gets to give his charm a demented spin that harks back to Christian Bale in “American Psycho.”
Imagine the meat-centric horror of Raw (2016) combined with the extremities of American Psycho (2000) and you get near to what the production is trying to do here.
The movies that obviously inspired Fresh range from the likes of American Psycho , Silence of the Lambs , and the dark disturbing prom night horror in The Loved Ones .
If it wasn’t already obvious, there’s a definite Patrick Bateman ( American Psycho ’s anti-hero) vibe about Stan’s “Steve”.
There’s a scene where he’s dancing as he “works” (terrific soundtrack) that harks back to the Huey Lewis one in American Psycho.
Fresh is the latest of many recent cultural products to involve cannibalism, while long scenes draw inspiration from American Psycho (a serial killer loves 1980s pop music), Westworld (dramatic monologues set to instrumental covers of Radiohead), and the endless villain confessions that Roger Ebert used to call ‘The Fallacy of the Talking Killer’.
Kill Your Friends (2015)
Directed by Owen Harris
influenced by American Psycho (2000)
Themes Plot Characters
Yes it is, but what the heck is it doing as the driving theme of Owen Harris' wannabe "American Psycho" flick, "Kill Your Friends"?
Not since American Psycho have business practices been as literally "cutthroat" as they are in Kill Your Friends, a dark-comic thriller likewise adapted from a novel.
We already have one American Psycho , and sadly for this adaptation of John Niven's book there was no need for a matching British Psycho, even one based in a different industry and played by a hot young thing .
Playing a well-spoken white collar exec willing to kill to get ahead in his career, there’s more than a bit of “American Psycho” in Hoult’s performance, never moreso than when he bludgeons a co-worker to death while lecturing him on the artistic merits of Paul Weller.
Hoult needs the gonzo charisma of Ewan McGregor in “Trainspotting” or Christian Bale in “American Psycho” to pull this off, and he doesn’t.
But it’s easy to imagine the two characters being devious rivals in “American Psycho”/”Kill Your Friends” fan fiction.
For Jordan – played by Cummings in an edgily neurotic performance that fully channels Christian Bale in Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000) – is a would-be alpha whose beta status is tested and exposed by his self-destructive, self-owning actions and experiences.
It’s a dark and sarcastic comedy that runs through the veins of The Beta Test , the type that will appeal to fans of Mary Harron’s American Psycho .
Whatever McCabe’s contributions, however, this is still primarily a vehicle for Cummings to give a neurotic, unhinged lead performance, this time in a more notably coked up manner reminiscent of American Psycho .
That, of course, brings to mind Michael C. Hall and Dexter , and indeed if The Beta Test is pastiche, it’s of a quippy, cutting style of thriller popular around the turn of the millennium—Mary Harron’s film version of American Psycho included.
Think the manic energy of Jim Carrey in Liar Liar (1997) meets the calculated charm of Christian Bale in American Psycho (2000).
As played by Jim Cummings, the co-writer and co-director of The Beta Test , Jordan is parody of Type-A personalities, resembling Patrick Bateman in American Psycho if he was less successful and merely starting on the pathway to murderousness.
Anyone could do a standard summer camp slasher rip-off, but Callahan throws in oblique references to Drive alongside American Psycho, even Jaws, and somehow makes it work.
There’s also the late-arriving Bob (Ari Millen), whose American Psycho tendencies and Members Only jacket are sometimes the only reminder that Vicious Fun is set in the 1980s, and the surly Carrie (Amber Goldfarb), who—unbeknownst to the others at first, though it’s not a plot spoiler—is a mash-up of Dexter and assassin, employed by a mysterious agency to criss-cross the country seeking out and slaying the worst of the worst.
Miscreants benefit from precision casting, be it veteran Julian Richings as Fritz the mad doctor who dresses like a clown or Ari Millen’s charismatic chameleon of a sociopath who nails the magnetism of American Psycho meets Knight Rider .
Coincidentally, the girls’ lit teacher, Mr. Davies (Scott Speedman), has just launched them on an exploration of the gothic novel—starting with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, then moving on, counter-chronologically, to Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, the lesbian-vampire classic.
“A Clockwork Orange” is obviously the primary homage, but traces of “American Psycho” also sneak in – the scenes of Bruce doing drugs at the nightclub with his co-workers are surprisingly parallel to Patrick Bateman’s – and there are isolated moments of paranoia and brutal vulgarity that recall David Cronenberg’s “Naked Lunch” and even Martin Scorsese’s “ The Wolf of Wall Street.
Tapping into a rich literary-cinematic lineage that includes Bad Lieutenant and American Psycho, McAvoy portrays Robertson as both charismatic charmer and unreliable narrator, occasionally breaking the fourth wall to share a sick smile with the audience.
Part satire, part farce, the film epitomizes such men and their nature by the creation of Patrick Bateman, presumably named after the "granddaddy" of cinematic serial killers, Norman Bates (of "Psycho" fame), a point that's accentuated by John Cale's ("I Shot Andy Warhol," "Something Wild") score that's reminiscent of what Bernard Herrmann did in Hitchcock's film.
"Psycho" has more than a few passing similarities to Stanley Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange."
Piercing (2019)
Directed by Nicolas Pesce
influenced by American Psycho (2000)
Themes Characters Dialogue
To get the obvious out of the way, Piercing has this palpable and murder-driven atmosphere not unlike American Psycho; female victims, sticking to a routine plan, and being an adaptation of a book from the 1990s makes Piercing feel like homage to what is arguably Christian Bale’s breakout film.
Abbott conjures up terror and laughter on par with Christian Bale’s performance as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho as he balances the embodiment of a lingering threat and comical character.
There's a dab of "American Psycho" in materialistic details.
The sophomore feature film from writer-director Nicolas Pesce ( The Eyes of My Mother ), Piercing is a psychosexual thriller that shares some of the same DNA as American Psycho but is entirely its own creature.
So he concocts a plan to commit a murder, in a very American Psycho voiceover.
Picture American Psycho for millennials, with less business card panic attacks and more feminist subversion, and you’ll be somewhere in the right ballpark.
In a detached voice, he reflects on his occupation, reminiscent of Patrick Bateman’s opening monologue from American Psycho (or perhaps The Narrator from Fight Club). “Popeye the Sailor said it best,” he notes. “‘I am what I am.'”
He also religiously listens to the Smiths, and his proclivity for Morrissey and co. is not the only thing that makes him seem like a cousin of "American Psycho's" psycho serial killer and pop music aficionado, Patrick Bateman.
Viewers will be reminded of the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation of “American Psycho” as Bloom methodically increases his bloody level of wrong-doing in pursuit of capturing the perfect crime.
Lou, the character Jake Gyllenhaal plays in the darkly funny, terrifically smart little film Nightcrawler , at first seems like a simple riff on someone like Gordon Gekko from Wall Street or Patrick Bateman from American Psycho — a sociopath who has absorbed the lessons of his culture so thoroughly that they have become the blood running through his veins.
He might be the post-recession cousin of Christian Bale in American Psycho.
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson
influenced by American Psycho (2000)
Visuals Characters Themes
Otherwise they make a curiously uninteresting pair, with Johnson overdoing the trembling lower lip while Dornan musters little beyond an icy stare and slight smirk, though he is quite a clothes horse, as an opening scene set in his elegant walk-in closet, somewhat reminiscent of “American Psycho,” demonstrates.
Christian Grey is basically the Patrick Bateman (“American Psycho”) of sex, to the point where “American Psycho” author Bret Easton Ellis saw so much of Patrick in Christian that he actually begged “Grey” author E. L. James for the right to write the film’s screenplay.
(It’s a shame, though, that American Psycho-era Christian Bale was not available to give it a try.)
Dornan gives us a stony, domineering, self-obsessed Christian - a monster not far removed from Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho (memorably played on film by Christian Bale).
I suppose that would be fine if the film at least generated some sort of sexual heat or was instead a blackly comic deconstruction of its source material, along the lines of Mary Harron’s American Psycho.
(To imagine this material in Stone's hands, recall the scene in Ken Russell's " The Music Lovers " where Tchaikovsky's head explodes during the "1812 Overture," then spin it out to feature length.)
We don’t really see as many serial killer movies coming out of Hollywood as we used to. Back in the 1990s they were a dime a dozen, headlined by Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and David Fincher’s Seven (1995) but including the likes of Copycat (1995), American Psycho (2000), Natural Born Killers (1994), Kalifornia (1993), and many others.
I was reminded of Patrick Bateman’s self-indulgent ramblings around his favored beauty routines in American Psycho.
Demolition (2016)
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée
influenced by American Psycho (2000)
Themes Characters
Demolition is first and foremost a movie about grief, and how everyone deals with it in different ways, but it’s as unconventional as you can get, with a dark comic tone that mirrors something like Fight Club or American Psycho.
Davis’s problem is that he doesn’t feel much of anything; he’s a more functional, socialized version of Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho.”
The Killer Inside Me (2010)
Directed by Michael Winterbottom
influenced by American Psycho (2000)
Characters Themes
He is close in spirit to American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, who looked in the mirror and declared that he is “not there.”
Not unlike Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer or American Psycho , The Killer Inside Me is a violent film because it’s about a violent person.
Since the character's mocking of his fellow citizens of Central City with deadpan aphorisms like "Haste makes waste"—bullshitting the rubes—could endear him to some indie-film viewers on the coasts, a more distanced rendering of his crimes could result in one more cool American Psycho–style antihero.
Hit Man (2024)
Directed by Richard Linklater
influenced by American Psycho (2000)
Characters Visuals
He pulls off impersonations of Tilda Swinton and American Psycho's Patrick Bateman and, far more challengingly, a deft mixture of the more aggressive man that Gary wants to become as well as the nerdy facade he presents to his students and coworkers.
At one point, it’s a full-blown impression of Christian Bale in American Psycho, glossy skin and all.
He’s a Patrick Bateman type, smooth and soulless, eager to stomp on your feelings if it pleases him.
He’s almost as sociopathic as Patrick Bateman.
Victor gleefully hacks away at body parts like Patrick Bateman from “American Psycho.”
And the central murder setpiece, arriving approximately an hour into the film, is spectacularly suspenseful, a bravura piece of filmmaking reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's work in 1980's "The Shining."