Serial Killer Archives - Movie SmackdownÂ®

Nightcrawler (2014) vs. Zodiac (2007)

October 31, 2014 Arthur Tiersky 4

If weâ€™ve learned anything over the years from movies about journalists, reporters and TV newspeople, itâ€™s that theirs is a world of ethical and psychological pitfalls. One day, youâ€™re an upstanding citizen doing your job, investigating and helping keep the public apprised of current events, and then, suddenly youâ€™re Kirk Douglas in Ace in the Hole (1951), deliberately manipulating your story to create and prolong the media circus surrounding it. Or youâ€™re Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote (2005), befriending a convicted murderer but privately rooting for his execution. Or youâ€™re Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), ingesting so many intoxicants that you miss the story entirely. Or youâ€™re Hayden Christensen in Shattered Glass (2003) and just flat out making shit up. […]

Fargo vs. True Detective

September 16, 2014 Arthur Tiersky 1

What will be the water cooler topic of the coming years? If you work in my office, then Fantasy Football is, as always, the obvious answer. (Seriously, people, if itâ€™s such a great sport, why do you need to gin it up with fantasies? But I digress.) In terms of episodic TV, the pickings are growing steadily slimmer, with Breaking Bad a brilliant but fading memory, Mad Men with but a half-season remaining, and Game of Thrones already starting to show its age, with many disappointed by this past season and (quite justifiably) concerned about the coming Hodor-less one. […]

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) -vs- Psycho (1960)

June 25, 2012 Jonathan Freund 4

The horror, the horror. Itâ€™s Hannibal the Cannibal and Not-Yet-Agent Starling from the Oscar-sweeping Silence of the Lambs vs. Norman Bates and the Crane Sisters in the Hitchcock masterpiece that put the word Psycho into the pop vernacular.

In addition to their enduring popularity in film schools and on screens of all sizes, these two classics of high-end terror have an astonishing amount in common. One has creepy taxidermy, while the other has creepy butterflies. Both borrow elements from the crimes of real-life serial killer Ed Gein; both, based on popular novels, were departures of sorts for their directors; both feature female protagonists who become objects of judgmental and voyeuristic males. Both films deal with disturbing memories of a dead parent. Both set their climax in a killerâ€™s cobwebbed basement. And both feature immortal villains played by actors named Anthony ___kins in unforgettable big-screen performances. […]