Watching Luke Kirby’s extraordinary performance as serial killer Ted Bundy in No Man of God got me to thinking of other actors who were able to sharpen their acting skills portraying murderers. It must be wild channeling some twisted mind day after day on set. And how do you shake those dark thoughts? Do you get all Method-y and immerse yourself so deeply in the role you end up stabbing the mailman just to “feel” the character? Here are some of my favorite actors who really went the distance playing on-screen multiple killers.
Luke Kirby (Ted Bundy). In No Man of God, Elijah Wood plays real-life FBI Special Agent Bill Hagmaier who spent years interviewing serial killer Ted Bundy (Luke Kirby) before his date with “old sparky.” What’s amazing about Luke Kirby’s performance (not to mention the physical resemblance) is the way he lowers and cocks his head, speaking softly to the agent; drawing him in conspiratorially, teasing him that he will show him what makes him tick. What he gets right about Bundy is the power to charm and terrify at the same time. An end scene where he mentally drags the agent down into the abyss with him, describing in chilling detail a particular kill, is just harrowing.
Charlize Theron (Aileen Wuornos). I love when attractive actors get to “uglify” themselves in movies and gorgeous Theron goes full-tilt to play highway killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster. Wuornos was a gay woman and street prostitute who killed seven of her male clients between 1989 and 1990. The film is sympathetic to Wuornos for the abuse she suffered at the hands of violent tricks. Her performance was so mesmerizing it won her a Golden Globe; an Indie Spirit Award and an Oscar for Best Actress.
Jeremy Renner (Jeffrey Dahmer). In David Jacobson’s chilling, brilliant, Dahmer, based on the Milwaukee-based gay cannibal, Jeremy Renner is riveting as the tormented, predatory Dahmer, working at a chocolate factory and picking up guys to later drug and kill them in his apartment. Early in his successful career, Jeremy Renner gives an extraordinary performance- not only in resemblance to the real Dahmer but in capturing the essence of his twisted soul. Although if I ran into someone who looked like Jeremy Renner in a bar, my head would be in a freezer now.
William Forsythe (John Wayne Gacy). Dear Mr. Gacy is a deeply disturbing film about a morbidly-obsessed college student (Jesse Moss) who contacts jailed serial killer John Wayne Gacy (William Forsythe) in order to help him with his thesis. (Gacy was the one who killed 33 young men and walled them in his basement). He enters into a correspondence and then begins to visit Gacy in prison. That’s when things get hairy in this chillingly effective Canadian film based on a true story. Forsythe is really, really frightening, manipulating the boy in the similar manner in which Gacy probably lured his doomed victims. Send in the clowns.
Richard Attenborough (John Christie). 10 Rillington Place is an upsetting 1971 British film about the monstrous killer John Christie (Richard Attenborough), who often pretended to have doctor’s credentials to lure his victims to his flat only to strangle and bury them in the back yard. Attenborough has the right kind of outwardly milquetoast demeanor that turns on a dime to pure evil. He even murders his neighbor Timothy Evans’ (a heartbreaking John Hurt) wife and child and testifies against him at trial. Evans was eventually hanged for Christie’s crimes. A gritty, dark film indeed.
Laura Prepon (Karla Homolka). Karla Homolka (Laura Prepon) and husband Paul Bernardo (Misha Collins) were like Canadian Barbie & Ken dolls. There wedding was in a white, horse-drawn carriage and from the outside they seemed like the perfect suburban couple. But they abducted, raped and killed several girls in Ontario. The movie- Karla is set in prison and about Karla Homolka’s recollections of what brought her there. It also paints her as a victim of a controlling, sociopathic husband. The reality was that the real Karla got a reduced sentence for testifying against her husband in court and after she was freed, videotapes surfaced that proved her to be a more-than-willing participant in the crimes. While the movie leaves a bad taste in the mouth, Prepon is actually quite good if you read between the lines. It makes her performance more cunning and calculating, like the real Karla.
Isaiah Washington (John Allen Muhammed). Blue Caprice was a deeply unsettling, but surprisingly artful film, directed by Alexandre Moors, about the Beltway Snipers- the two men who terrorized the Washington D.C. area in 2002 with random shootings. Isaiah Washington is absolutely riveting as John, a bitter loser who blames everyone else for his own failings. He finds a disciple and surrogate son in Lee (exceptional Tequan Richmond), a lonely homeless youth whom he takes under his wing. He teaches him how to drive a car, shoot a gun and kill people. The sniper attacks are quite frightening, but the dark subtext of the fucked-up father/son dynamics are even scarier.
Ross Lynch (Jeffrey Dahmer). Ross Lynch gives a haunted, sad, scary, and unforgettable performance as young (future serial killer) Jeffrey Dahmer in My Friend Dahmer, an electrifying film by Marc Meyers based on the graphic novel by John Backderf. Set during his last days of high school, Jeffrey was the strange kid in school. With longish hair hanging over his forehead, oversized glasses and stooped shoulders, he loped through school a perpetual loner. In a desperate act to seek attention at school Jeffrey fakes a loony epileptic seizure in the hallway and becomes the goofball hero for a budding artist Derf (Alex Wolff). But in private, Jeffrey submerges fresh roadkill he finds in acid in a shed behind his house and stalks a handsome doctor (Vincent Kartheiser) jogging along the road by hiding in the brush with a baseball bat. This doesn’t play out like a horror movie but there is a sense of creeping dread that sets in knowing how this story will end.
Scott Anthony Leet (William Bonin). William Bonin was the kind of scary boogey man I always feared in my old hitchhiking days. He picked up young men on the highway in his Ford van, bashed them with a tire iron and then raped, tortured and strangled them with their own T-shirts. His spree killings were dubbed the Freeway Killer murders by the press, which is the title of the movie starring Scott Anthony Leet as the killer. Police eventually had him under surveillance and caught him in the act sexually attacking another male hitchhiker. He was the first person to die of lethal Injection in California in 1996. That’s all in this film along with his warped relationship with his buddy Vernon (Dusty Sorg), who accompanied Bonin on his kills. it also explores the sick friendship with young Kyle (Cole Williams), who he tries to make a new accomplice in murder. It’s a sordid, graphic and thoroughly repellent film, but when the mustached Scott Anthony Leet suddenly transforms into a sweaty, angry monster it is genuinely frightening.
Cameron Britton (Edmund Kemper). David Fincher’s helmed Mindhunter, a terrific series about the beginnings of the FBI’s “Elite Serial Crime Unit” where agents interviewed mass murderers to profile and capture further killers. With two knockout lead performances by Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany as special agents, one of the stand-outs in the series was the amazing Cameron Britton as imprisoned killer Ed Kemper. Kemper was a hulking 6’ 9” serial killer who trolled the highways for female hitchhikers, raped and strangled them and then brought their bodies back to his house to dismember and sexually violate. Britton’s performance is stunning- he’s like a gentle giant, sitting quietly and talking calmly and eruditely about his crimes. “It’s not easy butchering people. It’s hard work,” he explains to the interviewing agent. And it’s hard not to get a chill down your spine when he says in a deadpan, matter-of-fact way, “You know there’s a lot more like me.”
Shirley Stoler (Martha Beck). Shirley Stoler is beyond brilliant in The Honeymoon Killers. She plays nasty nurse Martha Beck who answers a lonely-hearts ad and hooks up with sleazy Ray Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco), who is adept at fleecing women out of cash. Martha gets her hooks into Ray and convinces him to marry the “marks” for their inheritance. Unfortunately, Martha keeps getting unreasonably jealous and killing off the women. Leonard Kastle’s unforgettable, dark-humored film has finally attained the fame it always deserved. And the late, great Stoler is unforgettable.
David Tennant (Dennis Nilsson). A thick cloud of cigarette smoke hangs over Des, a mesmerizing three-part mini-series that premiered on ITV about British serial killer Dennis Nilsen (David Tennant), who murdered scores of young men he brought home from bars only to bury them in the floorboards and take them out from time to time to watch TV with. Brian Masters (portrayed in this series by Jason Watkins) wrote an amazing book about the crime- Killing for Company. Daniel Mays gives an incredibly moving performance as DCI Peter Jay, who made the initial arrest and tirelessly worked to identify the bodies. David Tennant, with his thick Scottish accent and flat affect plays the inscrutable murderer, who grows more calculating by the time of the trial when he suddenly pleads “not guilty,” and nearly gets off because of “diminished capacity.” Tennant is weirdly enigmatic and absolutely terrifying.
Steve Railsback (Charlie Manson). A lot of people have played Charles Manson, or a Manson-like cult leader, but one of my absolute favorites is Steve Railsback in the CBS TV mini-series based on the book by attorney Vincent Bugliosi- Helter Skelter. There’s something about the sound of his gravelly voice, or seeing his shaggy long hair and chilling gaze in the courtroom that really was memorably creepy. Railsback has an epic monologue in the courtroom that is wonderfully derailed. “Your children that come at you with knives. They’re your children. I didn’t teach ‘em…..The people you call my family were people you didn’t want. People alongside the road that their parents had kicked out. So, I took ‘em to my garbage dump and I fed ‘em. And I taught them that in love there is no wrong.” Pardon me while I carve an X into my forehead.
Zac Efron (Ted Bundy). The one thing about playing killer Ted Bundy is that you don’t have to “uglify” yourself. Being cute is an asset. So, the idea of heartthrob Zac Efron playing Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is not a bad idea. But can he carry it off? The answer is- surprisingly well. Based on a memoir by Bundy’s long-time girlfriend, the film is from her point of view as it slowly and frighteningly dawns on her that the seemingly nice guy she is in love with is possibly a brutal killer. Efron’s performance is subtle and fascinatingly creepy. Think of all his young female teenage fans suddenly daydreaming of Efron climbing into their bedroom windows at night and bludgeoning them to death.
Zach Villa (Richard Ramirez). The FX season of Ryan Murphy’s popular fright series American Horror Story: 1984 was set in a summer camp where years earlier there had been a massacre. The meta-mad approach made it possible to introduce all sorts of bad guys heading towards the camp including Richard Ramirez (Zach Villa), the infamous “Night Stalker,” who terrorized California with his burglaries, rapes and murders in the 1980s. Here he is after the girl that got away from him (Emma Roberts) in this wild, gory, dark-humored season. Villa brought a sense of creepy menace and fiendish sleaziness to the Ramirez character- you couldn’t take your eyes off him when he was onscreen. It’s a credit to the casting director of these American Horror Story seasons that we are introduced to such an amazing array of talented young actors.
John Carroll Lynch (Arthur Leigh Allen) Speaking of American Horror Story– how much do we love John Carroll Lynch? He’s just the best. Whether playing John Wayne Gacy in Hotel, or the chilling Twisty the Clown in Freak Show or the misunderstood Mr. Jingles in American Horror Story: 1984. If you want to see an actor dig into the part of a deranged serial killers and play it with relish, Lynch is your man. But we shouldn’t forget his star turn in David Fincher’s chilly, brilliant procedural Zodiac. Zodiac was about the still-unsolved California murders where couples in cars were targeted and shot by a shadowy killer who called himself “Zodiac” and sent taunting code-filled letters to newspapers saying “I like killing people because it is so much fun.” In the film the lead suspect is Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch), dishonorably discharged from the Navy who lost his teaching job because he molested his students. When the detectives question Allen at his job he calmly says, “I’m not the Zodiac killer- and if I was I wouldn’t tell you.” Just watch the way he crosses his leg or touches his watch (a Zodiac of course) just to taunt the police- it’s a master class of great acting. When he rises to leave, he insincerely remarks, “I look forward to the day when police officers are no longer referred to as pigs.”
Brian Dennehy (John Wayne Gacy). Brian Dennehy was a powerful Tony-winning actor whose presence fills up the screen as well as it did on stage. His performance in The Iceman Cometh is astounding. So, his turn as serial killer John Wayne Gacy on the TV film To Catch a Killer is splendid, scary and uniquely his own. Gacy was a Chicago civic leader and part-time clown for children’s events. He managed a construction business where he hired young men who sometimes experienced his famous magic rope trick only to find themselves lethally trapped in his murderous lair. What’s so great about Dennehy is the way he plays with the frustrated police during the TV movie. He’s like a cat with a ball of yarn as he taunts them. Dennehy is so good at playing such an arrogant son-of-a-bitch in this you root for the cops to finally nail his clown-killer ass.
Nicholas Turturro (Angelo Buono) In the film The Hillside Strangler, based on the infamous duo that killed women in L.A. in the 70s, C. Thomas Howell plays Kenneth Bianchi, a security guard who arrives in Los Angeles to stay with his cousin Angelo Buono (Nichoas Turturro). Angelo takes him on a walk on the wild side, showing him all the drink, drugs, strip clubs and easy sex in the city during the freewheeling 70s. They decide to open an escort service together but after killing a prostitute they think screwed them over they get a taste for murder instead. This is another movie you need to take a shower after seeing. It just grinds your face in the squalor, sordidness and murders. But you’ve got to hand it to Turturro– he makes Angelo so incredibly repellent you want to turn away from the screen. In a charming dinner sequence, Angelo’s drunken mom (Lin Shaye) goes into a tirade against her son at the dinner table, relating to Bianchi how Angelo violated his own stepdaughter because “she needed breaking in.” Then she screams at her son, “Why don’t you break off your own little dick and shove it up your own ass- you fucking asshole.” (They should have called this My Dinner with Angelo).
Maxine Peake (Myra Hindley). Between 1963 and 1965 Ian Brady (Sean Harris) and his girlfriend Myra Hindley (Maxine Peake) murdered at least five young people and buried their bodies on the moors outside Manchester. The two-part drama See No Evil: The Moors Murders is one of the least sensational, more respectful of true crime films, concerning itself with the relationship between Myra and her sister Maureen (Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggett) and Maureen’s husband Dave (Deadwater Fell’s Matthew McNulty) who were both drawn into their sinister orbit. Ian tries to seduce Dave into the couple’s murderous exploits, but when Dave witnesses Ian chopping to death a victim with a hatchet he immediately goes to the police. McNulty and Froggett are extraordinary and heartbreaking as they deal with the fallout of being associated with such monstrous murderers. Maxine Peake has moments when her mask drops and the evil predator peaks viciously though. (If you say Myra Hindley’s name five times in a London mirror it’s like Candyman).
Michael Rooker (Henry Lee Lucas). John McNaughton’s deeply disturbing 1986 film Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer starred Michael Rooker a psychotic spree killer. Crashing with his friend Otis (Tom Towles) and Otis’s sister Becky (Tracy Arnold) in Chicago, Henry (Rooker) murders at random, occasionally video-taping the horrific proceedings. This towers over any other film on this subject because of the way McNaughton visualizes the banality of evil. Rooker gives an incredible and frightening performance of a conscienceless misfit who calmly uses murders as a way of letting off steam. In this magnificently macabre film, even after all this time, scene after scene still leave you shaken. This is the film you should show your unsuspecting family at Christmas to get forever disinvited.
Jonas Dassler (Fritz Honka). Fatih Akin’s The Golden Glove is based on a true Hamburg serial killer in the 1970s and it’s so outrageously twisted and grindingly appalling it’s kind of amazing. The good-looking actor Jonas Dassler transforms himself into Fritz Honka, the brutal laborer who nightly drinks at this low-life German bar filled with alcoholic losers. Honka is repulsively ugly with his broken, bulbous nose and bad teeth and he picks up overweight, drunken women at the bar, brings them home, sexually violates them and beats them to death, cutting up their bodies and cramming the parts in his wall. His apartment is a ghastly vision of pin-up pictures, dolls, endless liquor bottles and hanging room deodorants.
Perry Benson (Fred West). In the gleefully grisly British bloodcurdler Mum & Dad, a deranged couple and their “adopted” children (who live and work near Heathrow airport), kidnap and kill unwary strangers for fun and profit. Lena (Perry Benson) is a Polish airport janitor who unwisely befriends chatty coworker Birdie and her mute brother. She is invited to spend the night at their house and soon is drugged and imprisoned by sexual sadist Mum (Dido Miles) and psycho killer Dad (Perry Benson). Based on the exploits of England serial killers Fred and Rosemary West, this brutal and often cringe-inducing film directed by Steven Sheil lives up to its notorious reputation.
Kurt Raab (Fritz Haarmann). Director Ulli Lommel’s wonderfully perverse Tenderness of the Wolves is based on German serial killer Fritz Haarman, tried and convicted of the murder and dismemberment of 24 young men and beheaded in 1924. The film feels a bit like a film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Not surprising since Fassbinder produced it and makes a cameo as a pimp. Also, Fassbinder’s stable of actors pop up in the film. The lead is Kurt Raab (The Stationmaster’s Wife) as the bald, beady-eyed Hermann, arrested again in his rooming house with an underage nude boy but let free in order to rat on his underworld friends to the police. Raab had the idea for the film and wrote the screenplay, and because they couldn’t afford to mount a period recreation they set it in the years after World War II. Raab does adhere to the testimony from Haarman’s trial though and he’s just wonderful in the film- he’s sweetly malicious as the weasely killer. He plays a black market meat seller, who picks up young homeless teens, brings them to his rooming house and they never are seen alive again. And, afterwards, there’s new fresh meat to sell. The homosexuality and male nudity in the film was startling in Germany at the time, and some murder scenes are still pretty outrageous.
Daniel Henshall (John Bunting). The Snowtown Murders is based on the horrific Australian “Bodies in Barrels” murders and wallowing in the low-life squalor where poor teenage Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) grows up in, repeatedly molested by his mother’s boyfriend and older brother. Things goes from bad to worse when mom hooks up with John (Daniell Henshall) a jocular, seemingly well-adjusted man who quickly becomes a father figure to Jamie. But John secretly loves going after “fags” and torturing them in the bathtub with his mate. (Henshall is incredibly scary). Eventually Jamie becomes part of their killer crew in a film that is so bleak and unrelenting you might need to slice open a vein before it’s over.
Roberts Blossom (Ed Gein). Roberts Blossom was a wonderful, quirky, unique character actor. Most people remember him from Home Alone but Deranged was his best. He plays a version of grave-robber killer Ed Gein- who gained notoriety in the late 50s when they found a woman gutted like a deer in his Plainfield, Wisconsin barn and his house filled with corpses and décor created out of body parts. Robert Bloch based Psycho on him and then there’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But this film has a more documentary feel to it- even a narrator is thrown in who pops up throughout. Blossom plays weird old coot Ezrah Cobb, who loses it when his controlling mother dies, so he digs her up and brings her back home, using his taxidermy skills to preserve her. Pretty soon the house is filled with mummified corpses and Ezrah is even donning women’s skins for fun in this offbeat cult classic.