American Psycho Review — A Horrific Dramatic Satire

American Psycho the famous Christian Bale movie is a social satire drama, which is both horrific and humorous. I picked this film for our #bestofhorror, scary movie contest, for certain reasons.

I like to think CINETV, not as an ordinary community for film enthusiasts. Rather a community who likes to dive deep into films and dissect them in fun ways. I believe in “Better film, better society”.

A horror film is a film that tries to arouse FEAR/DISGUST for entertainment purposes. Having said that, the movie American Psycho is one of the legendary masterpieces which portrayed social satire in a dramatical horror way. You can also call this a Dark Comedy.

I would try my best not to spoil the movie, still SPOILER ALERT. I would cordially recommend you to see the movie first, then read the rest of the blog if you haven't seen it yet.

Source

You should not watch this movie in serious mode. Think of this as a comedy/satire, unless you’ll think that everyone played their role miserably. Which is actually vice versa.

The movie is directed by Mary Harron. The movie is an adaptation of the novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. The script was written by Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner.

Apart from Christian Bale the cast also contained Jared Leto, Willem Dafoe, Josh Lucas, Justin Theroux, Reese Witherspoon, Chloë Sevigny and many others.

The film has been long praised for its fearless approach to depicting high-status greed and violence in this story of a wealthy young executive who struggles with a growing psychosis. The plot of the movie showcases the timeframe of the 1980s. The cinema symbolized the fashion and trends of the 80s remarkably.

Christian Bale aka Patrick Bateman, plays a narcissistic character, who is a wealthy bank executive in New York. He is handsome, charming, and has everything people dream of; money, status, power. However, Bateman hides a dark side behind his facade of perfection.

The successful young wealthy protagonist Patrick is a serial killer who has no regard for human life and often takes pleasure in inflicting pain on others. His victims include prostitutes and homeless people.

The story begins with Bateman describing his typical morning routine to the reader, starting from what he wears, what he eats for breakfast, to whom he calls on the phone throughout the day. In between these details of his daily life, there are short flashes of violence towards women which serve as foreshadowing for the main events in the film that follow later in the film. The film does not judge or blame Patrick's actions but creates a sense that everyone has an inner devil waiting to take over their better judgment when they become tired of living by society's rules.

The film has been long praised for its fearless approach to depicting high-status greed and violence in this story of a wealthy young executive who struggles with a growing psychosis. The plot of the movie showcases the timeframe of the 1980s. The cinema symbolized the fashion and trends of the 80s remarkably.

Christian Bale aka Patrick Bateman, plays a narcissistic character, who is a wealthy bank executive in New York. He is handsome, charming, and has everything people dream of; money, status, power. However, Bateman hides a dark side behind his facade of perfection.

He is a serial killer who has no regard for human life and often takes pleasure in inflicting pain on others. His victims include prostitutes and homeless people. The story begins with Bateman describing his typical morning routine to the reader, starting from what he wears, what he eats for breakfast, to whom he calls on the phone throughout the day.

In between these details of his daily life, there are short flashes of violence towards women which serve as foreshadowing for the main events in the film that follow later in the film. The film does not judge or blame Patrick's actions but creates a sense that everyone has an inner devil waiting to take over their better judgment when they become tired of living by society's rules.

The film is a psychoanalysis of an American bloodthirsty maniac who do not think of any consequence. The film showed little to no boundary to graphical violence. And to be honest, let aside the cast talk about director Marry Harron! Oh my word, she just nailed it. The graphic violence can be too much for some viewers, but I believe the story behind all the mayhem was well worth sitting through one gruesome scene after another.

Source

Cristian Bale played a significant, remarkable and great role. He really deserved an oscar for this. The selfish protagonist Bale turns his other side around at night. But the narcissism doesn't change. He is just as selfish at night. He just chases his desires, and at night he is just more violent about it.

Scenes in the movie portray women as pretty objects, which turns out to be true for Bale's character too. The crazy thing is, he gets caught up in his own game of greed, bloodthirst and lust.

It was generally well done because it wasn't just one gore scene after another. There was a decent story that went along with it all. The narration of the movies is just amazing. You might think that the narrator just didn't narrate. It did the exact thing it required. The narration made the part understandable to the audience which wasn't possible to show on the screen.

The film and narrator make you think and takes you on a journey in Patrick’s mind. You will ask yourself questions being astonished. It shows you many perspectives of people. You will observe it from distance but you will feel connected. Everyone and every aspect of this movie are that good. Yes, that good!

I cannot just explain this movie. It is beyond description. You’ll have to watch it. I recommend you to watch it.

The movie is rated 7.6/10 on IMDB. It has an 85% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

It is PG rated. It is obviously for audiences of 18+ years. It has sex & nudity, violence & gore, profanity, alcohol, drugs & smoking scenes. It has horrific scenes.

It just seems like every time you turn on the news there is violence somewhere. The movie leads me to wonder if this society really has what it takes to handle this kind of realism.

Thanks to CINETV, and @wiseagent for initiating such a fantastic contest! You may take part too, just check it out!