CURRENT TRENDS

Serial Killers and Media

An essay on the treatment of serial killers in the contemporary film.

The treatment of violence raises an important question: what is a role media play in the continuous cases of serial killers. The problem was impressively raised by Fitz Lang’s film M (1931), but it has been intensified by the contemporary film.

The essay investigates particular films that deal with serial killers: a documentary study of John McNaughtona (Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer), a film by Austrian Michael Haneke (Funny Games), Belgians Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel and Benoit Poelvoorde (Men Bits Dog), Oliver Stone (Natural Born Killers), Jefry Levy (S. F. W.) and self-ironic Wes Craven’s Scream. The unanswered question is how many serial killers dream to find themselves featured in the Oprah Show?

Dragan Rubeša