Do you know what Ed Gein said about women?

Serial killers. They're so hideously fascinating aren't they? I'd say - "right? er... is it just me?", but to be honest: I know for a fact it isn't. Aside from the hundreds of books and documentaries on the topic (not to mention some really meaty and definitely-worth-a-good-juicy-chunk-of-trawling-time Wikipedia pages), my boyfriend has a borderline-worrying interest in these fellas...*
I watched Mary Harron's 1991 film American Psycho last night for the first time since I was old enough to understand more of the psychological and satirical complexities of it, rather than just being excited by the incredibly inappropriate things my under-age friends and I were able to tick off our watched list.
Christian Bale's character is the potentially unreliable narrator Patrick Bateman (named, I presume, by Bret Easton Ellis after Hitchcock's Psycho Norman Bates. I believe Bateman's mother comes into the book quite a bit, though this pastiche element has been omitted from the film).
The main character's egocentric world illuminates Ellis's criticism of a corporate and contrived world he himself was once unhappily immersed in. It's illustrated very effectively in the film, with Bateman's behaviour and voiceovers beautifully teetering, sometimes very dangerously, between psychopath and externally flawless yuppie. Subtlety intermittently juxtaposed with gruesome brutality means that this film's plot, unlike Bateman, doesn't need to smash you over the head.
Bale's performance can be both eerie and hilarious and his physicality throughout is wonderful, ranging from blank faced absence to blood spattered manic and swinging occassionally through naked and working out. Which is fine.
Having not yet read the book I can't make any comment on how good the film is as a conversion, but it does communicate clearly and powerfully a character whose whole self is painstakingly constructed and practised, to the point where reality itself becomes dubious.
If you haven't seen this film ever (if your parents were more concerned by the ratings on videos you watched under 10) or it's somehow slipped under your radar - or if you just haven't seen it this week - I'd definitely recommend it. Probably not for the squeamish though. The content does rather live up to the name...

*Also for the mutually morbidly fascinated then have a wikipedia of Canada-grown Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka and the horrible things they did in the 80s/90s. I do warn you that this is some dark shit.

Now, so that I'm not just leaving this post with a creepy and sectioning-supporting tone, here is a tiny lizard.                                                                                                              

enjoy.