Women's Pictures - Mary Harron's American Psycho

Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 11:46AM
Anne Marie in American Psycho, Cara Seymour, Christian Bale, Horror, Mary Harron, Reese Witherspoon

Anne Marie continues a special horror month on "Women's Pictures"

Fun fact: American Psycho was the single most voted for film for the horror edition of Women's Pictures. Despite that, I almost didn't include it. This isn't because of some sudden onset of squeamishness on my part, or dislike of the film. American Psycho simply isn't a horror movie, at least not by conventional standards. American Psycho is director Mary Harron's dark Juvenalian satire of American consumerism, materialism, and the crisis of masculinity in the turn of the 21st century.

Though set in the 1980s, American Psycho is one of a handful of films from the late 1990s and early 2000s that violently pokes at the concept of modern masculinity. Like American Beauty and especially Fight Club, American Psycho confronts the idea of modern man chained to a desk, unfulfilled and overburdened by contemporary consumerist definitions of success. The titular Psycho is Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), a music-obsessed Wall Street broker in the decade where everything, from hair to shoulder pads to paychecks, was bigger. Bateman has all of the plastic markers of success: trendy apartment, good haircut, designer cloths, WASP fiance, the right friends, and a killer business card. But under his flashy, fake veneer, Patrick is all id. He wants to kill. He wants to fuck. He wants to possess. [More...]

These not-so-suppressed desires come out first in funny ways. A scene between Bateman and his friends comparing business cards resembles nothing so much as a metaphorical dick measuring contest. But then, Bateman begins expressing his jealousy and rage through murder. Whereas movies like Fight Club saw violence as a rebellion against shallow, civilized society, Mary Harron uses violence in American Psycho to show just how much contemporary society rewards - not restricts - the baser parts of Patrick's nature.

It's this satirical use of violence which sets Harron's film apart from conventional horror.

In horror, violence is an end in itself: the moment of shock or grotesquery that the film has been building to, a cathartic release from suspense drenched in blood. And while the violence in American Psycho is definitely shocking, it's also mostly offscreen. Bateman graduates in atrocity from a knife to a clothes hanger to a chainsaw to a gun and a kitten-eating ATM, but the violent action is never the point of the scene. Often the violence is obscured, or the movie cuts away before it occurs - as with Bateman's first run-in with the hooker, Christie. If the violence is shown, as with the kitten-eating ATM and the ensuing gun battle, it is so overblown that the scene goes from being unwatchable to unbelievable. The point is not to disturb the audience - though it is disturbing. The point is instead to show how Wall Street shark Patrick Bateman expresses his lust/fear/anger, and how he gets away with it, too.

Because Bateman does get away with it. Whether you consider the ending to be an open-ended mystery or a confirmation of insanity, the conclusion still remains that Patrick Bateman does not get punished for his violent fantasies or actions. In fact, the ruthlessness, jealousy, and bloodlust are what he's valued for. After all, where is the line between the violent things his friends say, and the violent things Bateman does? It's a matter of gradation. Patrick Bateman is a rich, white, straight, handsome man. Because of that, he can get away with murder.

P.S.: Cara Seymour, who played the prostitute Christie, was our guest blogger for a day earlier this year. She shared her memories of the film, and an interview with Mary Harron. If this review doesn't sate your bloodlust, check out Seymour's fantastic posts from June.

P.P.S. Your turn: Is American Psycho a bloody good satire, or a gory thriller?

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).