Episode 42: American Psycho

Joining us in this episode is the fantastic thriller writer Layne Fargo!

In this episode we look at the 2000 slasher film American Psycho. Directed by Mary Harron. Screenplay by Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner. Based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Starring Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Chloë Sevigny, Samantha Mathis, Cara Seymour, Justin Theroux, Guinevere Turner, Reg E. Cathey and Reese Witherspoon.

Trigger Warnings for this episode are violent death, racial and homophobic slurs, animal cruelty.

Recommendations:

Love Is Red by Sophie Jaff
Katherine Emerson was born to fulfill a dark prophecy centuries in the making, but she doesn’t know it yet. However, one man does: a killer stalking the women of New York City. People think he’s the next Son of Sam, but we know how he thinks and how he feels . . . and discover that he is driven by darker, much more dangerous desires than we can bear to imagine. He takes more than just his victims’ lives, and each death brings him closer to the one woman he must possess at any cost.

Killing Words (2003) (Palabras encadenadas)
Spanish psychological thriller
Directed by Laura Mañá
Screenplay by Laura Mañá, and Fernando de Felipe
Based on the play by Jordi Galceran
Starring Darío Grandinetti, Goya Toledo, Fernando Guillén and Eric Bonicatto
A mild-mannered psychopath plays mind-games with a woman he has tied to a chair in his basement.

The Normal Heart
directed by Ryan Murphy and written by Larry Kramer, based on his 1985 play of the same name.
Starring Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons, Alfred Molina, Joe Mantello, Jonathan Groff, and Julia Roberts
The film depicts the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks (Ruffalo), the founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group. Weeks prefers public confrontations to the calmer, more private strategies favored by his associates, friends, and closeted lover Felix Turner (Bomer). Their differences of opinion lead to arguments that threaten to undermine their shared goals.