Psycho Paths: Tracking the Serial Killer Through Contemporary American Film and Fiction

263 Pages·2000·1.44 MB·English

Psycho Paths

O U G H CONTEMPO
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Philip L. Simpson
   
Carbondale and Edwardsville
Copyright © 2000 by the Board of Trustees,
Southern Illinois University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
03 02 01 00 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Simpson, Philip L., 1964–
Psycho paths : tracking the serial killer through contemporary American
film and fiction / Philip L. Simpson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Serial murderers in motion pictures. 2. Serial murderers in literature.
3. American fiction—20th century—History and criticism. I. Title: Psycho
paths. II. Title.
PN1995.9.S297 S56 2000
791.43'655—dc21 99-056666
ISBN 0-8093-2328-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8093-2329-X (pbk. : alk. paper)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of
∞
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
To my mother and father

Contents
Preface ix
Introduction: The Serial Killer in Fiction 1
1. The Gothic Legacy and Serial Murder 26
2. The Psycho Profilers and the Influence of
Thomas Harris 70
3. Detectives Versus Serial Killers 113
4. Serial Killers and Deviant American
Individualism 135
5. The Serial Killer, Myth, and Apocalypse
in 1990s Cinema 172
Notes 209
Works Cited 225
Index 235

Preface
My desire to understand the media popularity of serial murder resulted in
this book—a general overview of some of the most recognizable American
novels and film/television treatments of serial murder, the major literary
themes and social context of these treatments, and the critical responses to
them. Serial murder, even as overexposed as that term has become, serves as
a broad metaphor for a plethora of concerns facing contemporary Ameri-
can society at the start of the twenty-first century. And while serial murder
indeed remains a favorite staple of tabloid journalism and cheap fiction, it
has also compelled a variety of serious contemporary American writers and
film directors to grapple with its philosophical implications. In the pages
ahead, I will track the serial killer through some of the most recognizable
novels and films—the formative “classics” in the field, if you will—that
accompanied the public explosion of interest in serial murder from the 1980s
to the present. I will elaborate upon a brief history and key formulations of
various structural components of the serial killer text for the express pur-
pose of giving context to the discussion, referring the reader to other stud-
ies when appropriate. Then, I will illustrate how these influences work in
representative novels and films about serial murder.
The study (as opposed to the tabloid merchandising) of serial murder
is already well established in sociological and criminological circles by writ-
ers such as Jack Levin, James Fox, and Elliott Leyton, to name only a few.
The analysis of the fictional narratives of serial murder, however, is still grow-
ing. Those who have accomplished this kind of specialized, in-depth study
include Jane Caputi, Deborah Cameron and Elizabeth Fraser, Philip Jenkins,
Richard Tithecott, and Mark Seltzer. Each scholar has his or her own in-
sights into the mass appeal of fictional accounts of serial murder. What fol-
lows is a brief summary of each of those insights, provided here so that one
may better understand the context in which my own work exists.
One predominant school of thought, specific to the 1970s and 1980s,
to explain the appeal of fictionalized serial murder has it that patriarchal
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