Cinema Junkie
BONUS CJ Podcast Serial Killers
TRT 27:46
Note: This is an automated transcript and may contain inaccuracies.
BETH ACCOMANDO Today is the birthday of infamous murderer and grave robber, Ed Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield.
NEWS REPORT Gein admitted to digging up 9-11 bodies, most from this Plainfield cemetery. But to this day nobody knows how many graves might actually be empty.
BETH ACCOMANDO And while I am not celebrating his birth, I am using it as an excuse to convince my Midday Movie partners to discuss serial killer films and streaming shows.
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BETH ACCOMANDO Welcome back to listener supported KPBS Cinema Junkie, I'm Beth Accomando.
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BETH ACCOMANDO Serial killers have always been amongst us even if we didn’t have a name for them. In movies, M starring Peter Lorre is often recognized as the first feature film to really explore a serial killer as a central character and it was inspired by a real life killer known as the Vampire of Dusseldorf. But we would have to wait until 1960 for Peeping Tom in England and Psycho in the U.S. to launch the modern cinematic obsession with serial killers and its grindhouse offspring the slasher film.
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BETH ACCOMANDO I need to take one quick break and then I will be back to discuss serial killers with my slightly reluctant colleagues Jade Hindmon and Yazdi Pithavala.
MIDROLL 1 [currently at 00;01;23;20]
BETH ACCOMANDO Welcome back to Cinema Junkie presents Midday Movies and are you ready to go someplace dark…
CLIP Mindhunter Kemper
JADE HINDMON
Okay, y'all, so Beth, I'm gonna try to hang with you on this one. Give us a little background on how we define what a serial killer is.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Sure. So using the FBI definition, it's an individual who murders 3 or more people with the killings taking place over a period of more than 1 month. In 3 or more separate events. So someone who murders multiple people in a short space of time is referred to as a spree killer, or somebody who murders a large number of people all at once would be a mass murderer. So that's kind of the differentiation through what the FBI says. And the term serial killer comes up in Germany back in 1930, and in the US as early as 1960. But it really entered kind of the pop culture zeitgeist and media attention and public consciousness after FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler popularized it in 1974. And that whole thing is recounted in the show Mindhunter, which we will be addressing a little bit later. Essentially, serial killers have existed all through time, long before this term came up. Most notably, there was someone, Gilles de Rais, in 15th century France. Of course, famously, Elizabeth Báthory in 16th century Hungary, who was supposed to have bathed in the blood of virgins. Jack the Ripper in the 19th century in England, who was never caught. And in the US, the first sort of recognized serial killer was H.H. Holmes in the 19th century. But they just weren't labeled serial killers at that time.
JADE HINDMON
We have you to thank and blame for this topic of terrible people. So why did you want to discuss serial killers?
Speaker 3
I am so—
JADE HINDMON
What's wrong with you, Beth?
BETH ACCOMANDO
I am so fascinated with them. So when I was a little kid, my dad had a 26-volume crime encyclopedia that was behind his desk, and I used to sit there and read those things cover to cover because I felt like if I could look at the darkest part of humanity, the scariest thing that there is out there, and try to understand it, maybe that could be helpful. Maybe I could learn to avoid it or combat it in a better way. So that is something that has always sort of been, I feel like, always been in my DNA. In fact, this year, this The 12-hour horror marathon I do, Secret Morgue, is themed to serial killers and slashers, so all this has been on my mind for the past few months. And since we started by talking about Ed Gein, technically he's not a serial killer because he was only convicted of killing 2 people, but the thing that kind of grabbed everyone's attention and made him such a horrific image for a lot of people is he robbed graves and then ended up making furniture out of human remains and a suit and I think gloves and a mask out of human flesh. This was in the late 1950s in a small town. We're a little jaded now, but imagine how shocking that would have been in the late 1950s.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And just as the murders were coming to light, author Robert Bloch – who lived a mere 35 miles from Ed Gein – was finishing his book Psycho about a serial killer. Bloch denied that Gein’s case had any influence on his character of Norman Bates. But once Alfred Hitchcock turned the book into a film in 1960, people couldn’t help seeing a connection between the fictional serial killer and the real one, especially in terms of the unnaturally close relationship between the men and their mothers.
So the film does a good job of depicting a certain kind of serial killer personality. It falters a little bit in the very end where it tries to give a very clinical explanation of Norman’s mental state, but here in this early scene between Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates and Martin Balsam as a private investigator, we see this character who is kind of this beta male, someone who's a loser, someone who's been dominated by his mom, but he's trying to act like he's much smarter and more in control. So here's the scene from Psycho from 1960.
CLIP
Is anyone at home? No. Oh, there's somebody sitting up in the window. No, no, no, there isn't. Oh, sure, go ahead, take a look. Oh, that, that must be my mother. She's, she's an invalid. An invalid. Uh, it's, uh, it's practically like living alone. Oh, I see. Now, if this, uh, girl Marion Crane were here, you wouldn't be hiding her, would you? No. Not if she paid you well? No. Let's just say for the, just for the sake of argument, that she wanted you to gallantly protect her. You'd know that you were being used, that you're You wouldn't be made a fool of, would you? But I'm not a fool. Well, I— And I'm not capable of being fooled, not even by a woman. Well, this is not a slur on your manhood. I'm sorry. Let's put it this way. She might have fooled me, but she didn't fool my mother. Well, then your mother met her. Could I talk to your mother? No, as I told you, she's confined. Yes, but just for a few minutes, that's all. There might be some hint that you missed out on. You know, sick old women are usually pretty sharp. Could I just— Mr. Arbogast, I wouldn't disturb her. I think I've— I think I've talked to you all I want to. Yes, we just— I think it'd be much better if you left now. Thanks.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Anthony Perkins is great in this. So Ed Gein is also the inspiration for Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films, as well as the Buffalo Bill character in Silence of the Lambs.
JADE HINDMON
Well, Yazdi, that brings us to one of the serial killer films you appreciate, which is Silence of the Lambs. Quite the film there.
YAZDI PITHAVALA
Yes, yes, Silence of the Lambs has the has the unique distinction of being the first and actually the only horror film to date to win the Best Film Oscar. And like Mindhunter, which we'll be talking about in just a second, most of the film is a procedural to track down the fictional serial killer Buffalo Bill, who was inspired by Gein and Ted Bundy. And of course, Jodie Foster very famously plays the rookie FBI officer who becomes kind of obsessed in her pursuit of Buffalo Bill. And she seeks out this very enigmatic serial killer, Hannibal Lecter, played indelibly by Anthony Hopkins. Hannibal Lecter is in captivity, and she wants to understand the person she's trying to capture through tapping into the mind of Hannibal Lecter. And here's one of the famous scenes between them.
CLIP
Perhaps you'd care to lend us your view on this questionnaire. Oh, no, no, no, no. You were doing fine. You had been courteous and receptive to courtesy. You had established trust with the embarrassing truth about Migs. And now this ham-handed segue into your questionnaire. It won't do. I'm only asking you to look at this, Doctor. Either you will or you won't. Jack Crawford must be very busy indeed if he is recruiting help from the student body. Busy hunting that new one, Buffalo Bill. What a naughty boy he is. Do you know why he's called Buffalo Bill? Please tell me. The newspapers won't say. Well, it started as a bad joke in Kansas City Homicide. They said, "This one likes to skin his humps." Why do you think he removes their skins, Agent Starling? Thrill me with your acumen. It excites him. Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims. I didn't. No, no, you ate yours.
YAZDI PITHAVALA
The film, of course, is canon now for 100 things it does right. The expert editing, the use of layered storytelling, the emotional undertow that drives the lead, and a villain in Hopkins who remains unmatched. But I think there is one thing about the film that is not celebrated enough, in my opinion, and that is the direction of the late Jonathan Demme. This is the same filmmaker who made the ahead-of-its-time Something Wild, the zany Married to the Mob, the bruising Philadelphia, and the entirely underrated Rachel Getting Married, which in my opinion has the best Anne Hathaway performance to date, which says a lot. But the fact that he also pulled out of his pocket one of the most claustrophobic and chilling horror films of all time speaks to his versatility.
JADE HINDMON
When I hear you all talk about these movies, like Beth, you were talking about how you kind of put yourself in the position of someone who might have been targeted by a serial killer. What would you do? I mean, I think that's a natural reaction. I'd do the same thing. Also, the sort of dissecting the mind of a serial killer and what What went wrong there? What is their thinking? That's also something that makes these movies, I think, so fascinating. You, Beth, have another film that features the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Yes, I do. So back in 1986, which was 5 years before "Silence of the Lambs," Michael Mann adapted another Thomas Harris book. This one was "Red Dragon." And it features Hannibal Lecter again, and this time played in a much less flamboyant but equally chilling style by Brian Cox. And this film was called "Manhunter." manhunter, and again an FBI agent, this time played by William Peterson, and he wants to pick the brain of imprisoned serial killer Hannibal Lecter, this time to catch another serial killer who is dubbed the Tooth Fairy. And here's a scene between the FBI agent and Lecter.
CLIP
I want you to help me, Dr. Lecter. Yes, I thought so. It's about Atlanta and Birmingham. Yes. You read about it? In the papers. I don't tear out the articles. I wouldn't want them to think I was dwelling on anything. You want to know how he's choosing them, don't you? I thought you might have some ideas. Why should I tell you? You get to see the file on this case, and there's another reason. Pray tell. Thought you might be curious to see if you're smarter than the person I'm looking for. Then by implication, you think you're smarter than me since you caught me. No, I know that I'm not smarter than you. Then how did you catch me? Well, you had disadvantages. What disadvantages? You're insane. Don't think you can persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity. I don't think I'll persuade you at all. You'll either do it or you won't. Besides, we have Dr. Bloom working on it. He's the best. Do you have the file with you? Yes. Pictures? Yes. Let me have them and I might consider it. No. Dream much, Will? Goodbye, Dr. Lecter. You haven't threatened to take away my books yet. Let me have the file and I'll tell you what I think.
BETH ACCOMANDO
So this is another great procedural crime thriller, and its Tooth Fairy character is very loosely inspired by a real killer the BTK Killer. And that's an acronym for bind, torture, kill. And his name was Dennis Rader. So, yes, once again, we have a real-life serial killer inspiring a fictional one.
JADE HINDMON
And he was one of multiple serial killers featured in a series that you both ranked very high. And that is David Fincher's Mindhunter. Yazdi, why do you like this show?
YAZDI PITHAVALA
Yeah, Jade, it's for the exact reason that you mentioned earlier, which is trying to get into the mind of these serial killers in an attempt to better maybe prevent them from doing more harm. So Mindhunter consists of 2 seasons which were produced by David Fincher, and Fincher himself directed several of the episodes in both seasons. So the show is about the formation and work of the Behavioral Science Unit, or the BSU, the real-life department at the FBI, which was formed to better understand serial killers so we can do better at catching them. And in doing so, the show becomes a very thoughtful, systematic dive into almost every known serial killer that became a household name since the early 1970s. Many have called the show cold and methodical. Yes, it is both of those things, but I think only to its great credit. Mindhunter is the best kind of anomaly when it comes to shows about serial killers, of which there are a dime a dozen. And in Mindhunter, we seldom see much violence depicted on screen. And as a filmmaker, it would have been so much easier to give in to the sensationalism and have us actually see reenactments of the worst kind of crimes.
YAZDI PITHAVALA
Instead, the show relies on meticulously recreated interviews conducted with actual serial killers. And to see what they have to say about what they did, And to hear it in their own words is far more disquieting, the kind that settles into your bones with a chill. And Mindhunter knows that what you can imagine in your head is far more disturbing than anything you're actually shown on screen. I also wanted to say that Mindhunter, in a way, is the logical extension of the film Zodiac that Fincher had directed a decade ago. That film, too, was about the tedious, tireless process that goes into trying to nab a serial killer. And it asks the question, can we truly understand the mind of the smartest serial killer? Or does evil simply exist as is with no explanation? Mindhunter is full of careful reenactments of FBI interviews, but it is also an exercise in masterful character development for each of the 3 principal cast members played by Jonathan Groff, Anna Torv, and Holt McCallany.
JADE HINDMON
Beth, what do you love about the show? What does it get right?
BETH ACCOMANDO
Yeah, I mean, I agree with a lot of what Yazdi said. This show is amazing, and David Fincher is so good at this kind of storytelling. And it tries to be very accurate, unlike— there's the current Ryan Murphy Monster: The Ed Gein Story, which goes into exactly what Yazdi said Fincher avoids, which is the sensationalizing of the case and the facts. So Fincher and his team pull a lot of the dialogue from actual interviews the FBI had with these serial killers. And what I love is that so much of the show is just those interviews. You're just in a room with a serial killer and these FBI agents. It's objectively a safe space. It's a prison. There are guards. There shouldn't be anything that causes them to feel danger. Yet these are some of the most chilling moments ever created on film or in a show. And the casting of the serial killers is all spot on. They look and sound like the real people that they're portraying. And as Yazzie mentioned, Fincher did this in Zodiac. And again, Zodiac is inspired by the real Zodiac Killer, which also inspired the Dirty Harry film. And in that film also, the most tense scenes are just dialogue, and, like, the threat feels so palpable.
BETH ACCOMANDO
So here's one of the many stunning interview scenes with serial killer Ed Kemper, who was known as the Coed Killer. And these scenes just send chills up my spine.
CLIP
I'll be honest, I don't get many visitors. When I do, you think they want to talk about this shit? No, it's like if you worked at a slaughterhouse with livestock. Real conversation stopper. Did you? No, I'm just saying, people who hunt other people for a vocation, all we want to talk about is what it's like. Shit that went down. Entire upness of it, right? Sure. It's not easy. Butchering people's hard work, physically and mentally. I don't think people realize you need to vent. What are you writing down? Oh, I just think it's an interesting choice of words. Vocation. Well, what would you call it? A hobby? I'd say it's more than that. Look at the consequences. The stakes are very high.
BETH ACCOMANDO
So the fact that Mindhunter never got to complete its story arc is tragic. It did go a little off the rails towards the end. And the show is based on Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, which was written by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. And the book tells the true story of FBI agents John Douglas and Robert Ressler, along with Anne Burgess, who was the inspiration for the Anna Torv character. And there's an excellent documentary on her called Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer, and I highly recommend that. Burgess was a psychiatric clinical nurse, and she pioneered assessing and treating trauma in rape victims, and her work with victims really helped profiling these serial killers.
JADE HINDMON
We kind of touched on this a little earlier, but why do you think we have this fascination obsession, if you will, with serial killers? Why are so many films and series and documentaries focused on them? Yazdi?
YAZDI PITHAVALA
I don't know.
JADE HINDMON
I'm not one of those. Don't include me in the weird. I hear you, Yazdi. I'm with you.
YAZDI PITHAVALA
No, but I think at some level, I understand this fascination of trying to understand the very absolute worst that humanity is capable of. And there has to be an inherent fascination with that.
JADE HINDMON
Beth, what about you?
BETH ACCOMANDO
Yeah, I agree. It's wanting to know the darkest parts of humanity. Can I learn anything from these films? Does it help me to understand what prompts these people to do these things, or what could help me if I ever encountered any of them? You know, I would never say to a serial killer, "You don't have to do this." I think we've learned by now they have no conscience. It doesn't do you any good. It only plays into to what they want you to be, which is a victim, and to have power over you. I did speak to a forensic psychologist who for 24 years was a consultant to the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, and he worked with the people who inspired Mindhunter. And here's what J. Reid Malloy says about why we might be fascinated with these movies and these serial killers.
J. REID MELOY
People flock to the theater to, you know, a safe place to experience the fear of being prey to a predator. It can capture you emotionally to where you can experience that fear and explore that fear within yourself in the context of a safe environment. The experience of being prey to a predator is so primitive. This level of fear is buried deep in what's called the limbic system of our brain. That fear has kept us safe to be able to sense predation and be able to then do one of three things, typically hide, fight, or flee. And then one emerges out of the theater or leaves the couch. And having had this experience of deep limbic arousal of fear, I think, is an enormous draw.
JADE HINDMON
And that is very, very fascinating. I've been speaking with our midday movie critics, KPBS cinema junkie Beth Akomando and Movie Wallis's podcaster Yazdi Padavla. Beth, Yazdi, thank you so much.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Thank you. Thank you for putting up with my request to do serial killers.
JADE HINDMON
I'm sold on the films now.
YAZDI PITHAVALA
Thank you, Jade.
MUSIC
BETH ACCOMANDO And before I wrap up, I just wanted to share a little more of what forensic psychologist J. Reid Meloy had to say. I wanted him to introduce a film at The Secret Morgue 7: Slashers and Serial Killers but his schedule will not make that possible. So I tried to tap him for this podcast and caught him as he was heading out of town so I did not have a proper sit down interview but I found a lot of what he said fascinating. In talking about Mindhunter and the FBI’s stance prior to the creation of the Behavioral Science Unit, he said the thinking was there was nothing to learn from criminals.
J. REID MELOY And then along came 3 people, and I, I knew all 3 of these people as a as a very young consultant, and … they did something that was extraordinary at the time, and that is that they approached their superiors at the FBI and said we'd like to go talk to these individuals because we think we can learn a lot from them. … it doesn't seem like much, but this was shocking at the time, that you would actually go talk to criminals. But they pressed. And out of that came the first behavioral science unit…
BETH ACCOMANDO I asked him about Ann Burgess, the woman who inspired the character of Wendy Carr. Unlike her fictional counterpart, Burgess was a nurse who brought a wealth of knowledge to the team.
J. REID MELOY Her perspective on these cases was quite important. One of the reasons was that over the course of their work, they would encounter victims that had survived some of these events that were intended to be murders, but the individual, for one reason or another, had actually escaped or had been thought to be dead by the perpetrator, and they were not dead, and they survived. And so a victimology began to develop in terms of the these individuals, which at that time, particularly because the serial murders were mostly against, mostly against women, is that these women could do several things. One is, uh, they could actually talk very specifically about the behavior of the perpetrator. And then also at the same time the Behavioral Science Unit, what it was called at the time, could then study what was called victimology, the behavior of the victim in relation the perpetrator, as well as the histories of the victims, uh, you know, how this had unfolded over time. What are the various decisions that these women made that got them into a position where they were vulnerable to an individual that could carry out a, uh, uh, you know, a serial homicide?
BETH ACCOMANDO in addition to his duties with the FBI Meloy was also retained as forensic psychologist by the defense in criminal litigation.
J. REID MELOY And one of the things that struck me was, um, uh, was how different each one was. And that really surprised me because, you know, they didn't fit any caricature. tThese individuals were typically not, uh, necessarily very bright, cunning, shrewd you know, Hannibal Lecterian individuals. You know, they weren't at all. In fact, typically their life histories were abysmal in many respects, both the nature and the nurture that they, you know, that they had come to, in a sense, both inherit and experience as they were growing up. Where there was oftentimes histories of neglect and abuse of these individuals. There are often major chronic failures in, in both relationships as well as any kind of occupational pursuit. And then at some point in time, they, for a variety of internal psychological characteristics as well as circumstances, they would decide to then assault. And with some of these individuals, actually, the first killing was accidental, but then what they realized was that they liked it. And what they found was it was very— the actual assault and then the killing was very sexually arousing to them. And this would then bring them back to this behavior weeks, if not months, down the road with another victim where it would be much more intentional and much more planned, and the killing would become a part of the modus operandi of the individual.
BETH ACCOMANDO I explained by fascination with serial killers and wanting to understand the darkest part of human behavior.
J. REID MELOY… one of my initial motivations of getting into essentially criminal forensic psychology, which is where I worked for decades was that I was always very, very curious about the extremes of human behavior, and I was never, I was never repulsed by it. I was never put off by it. I was just intensely curious about how people could do these certain things. And I think by immersing myself in that, it was a way to get, you know, to gain a much fuller understanding of this. And probably to feel safer in the world. So yeah, I totally— yeah, I totally get that.
BETH ACCOMANDO Meloy does feel that there are fewer serial murder cases now in the United States because the forensics have become so good. But they do still exist so he offers this advice since opportunism plays a major role in victim selection.
J. REID MELOY I remember one individual that was a serial murderer but I said to him, I said, what, what keeps you from selecting a victim? And he said, light, locks, and dogs.
BETH ACCOMANDO
That was forensic psychologist J. Reid Meloy with a final piece of advice.
That wraps up another edition of KPBS listener supported Cinema Junkie. If you enjoy the podcast, then please share it with a friend because your recommendation is the best way to build an addicted audience. You can also help by leaving a review.
Till our next film fix, I’m Beth Accomando your resident Cinema Junkie.
