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“Serial killers appeal to people because they’re self-contained evil units and are easily adaptable to a mono-drama. I think people are unconsciously attracted to their sexual power. Serial killers are sexual fiends who can have anybody they want. The way they have them is to possess them for brief moments, sexually abuse them, torture them and kill them. The idea of conscienceless sexuality appeals to the nihilism in people. That’s what I think serial killers are, and why they have become so popular in the culture these days.”

-- James Ellroy

I don’t like serial killers.

As a concept, I mean. I’m sure in person some of them are perfectly nice people right up until they make furniture out of you. I’ll admit some real-life serial killers are fascinating for reasons that are hard to pin down. There’s Ed Gein, of course, indirectly responsible for not one, not two, but three brilliant pieces of horror fiction (Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the Buffalo Bill character in Silence of the Lambs.) Albert Fish, “The Gray Man,” with his penchant for inserting nails into himself and killing children, is one of those fascinating ones.

And that right there is the insidiousness of the serial killer’s appeal. I just laid out two singularly strange traits – the killing of children, the deeply uncomfortable insertion of nails – and already you’ve perked up a little bit. The (extreme) deviation from the norm is enough to whet your appetites but not enough to sate it; you want to know more. You want the context for this depravity. Where did Fish come from? What did he do, specifically? Do I mean what you think I mean when I say “insertion” of nails? (Yes, I do.) And, of course, that greatest of questions, the first and last one that really matters when it comes to the actions of the horrible: Why?

The pursuit of the “Why” motivating serial killers has propped up an entire industry ever since Truman Capote came to Kansas. Call it the OCD compulsion present in large portions of the population; by examining a cryptic jumble of events and divining the motives and actions behind them, we can turn the nonsensical into a streamlined narrative of causes and events. You know, a murder-mystery. Serial killers are just another signpost on that ever-blurring line between myth and fact. They present the observer with that most tantalizing of promises: the ability to break someone’s life down into a three-act story.

(Incidentally, this is why I find David Fincher’s Zodiac more and more appealing the more I think and read about it. Many critics complained about the movie’s lack of closure, which is of course exactly what the movie’s about and reveals how uncomfortable we are with untidy endings.  Fincher refused to make the killings and the increasingly vain hunt for the killer obey the strictures of traditional Hollywood story, and my hat’s off to him for that. “Closure is bullshit,” as another famous Ellroy quote goes, and I think Fincher would agree wholeheartedly. Quite a maturation from the director of the all-smoke-no-fire Seven.)

But beyond their most basic luridness – perhaps that conscienceless sexuality Ellroy was talking about – real-life serial killers aren’t that interesting. They are by definition not sexy predators. They are slaves to their sexual fetishes and shame, able to slip through the cracks for a time only because the world is so glutted with stimuli that it takes a long time for anyone to notice anything, not because they’re evil masterminds. They are more or less like everyone else, except they have no restraint or subtlety in how they turn their interior damage outward.

But “slave to shame” isn’t much of a selling point for fiction, even though it’d be a fantastic album title for a heavy metal band. No, in disposable serial killer fiction – whether it be on TV, in the movies, books, or comics – the serial killer is almost always an evil genius of some kind, prone to do what he does because of exotic morality or alien brilliance. And the sex, of course. Can’t forget the sex. Even serial killers neutered by their alien intelligence, like Hannibal Lecter, manage to create a little bit of that predator-prey sexual tension, if only by dialogue.

(Metallica’s cover of Nick Cave’s “Loverman” just came up on my randomizer. Oh, iTunes, how did you know?)

Reminds me a little of the Victorian style of vampire. Before John Polidori wrote “The Vampyre,” the bloodsucking creatures of the night you and I know and love had a closer resemblance to Count Orlock from Nosferatu than Count Dracula. They were plague-ridden corpses, in other words, resembling two-legged parasites with a strong case of the Uglies. The sexual overtones are a relatively recent addition to the mythos, but they’re pretty compelling, and you can see why people ran with it. Dark, mesmeric human with strange mannerisms uninterested in (or incapable of performing) the mundane sexual act, but who nonetheless takes you against your will and robs you of something vital. The best part is their hunting is done in secret, so you (the victim) can’t be held responsible for anything that happens.

Well, put in those terms, that archetype does sound awfully similar. But where this iteration is merely the newest for the ages-old vampire myth, it is arguably the starting point for the serial killer. This is provided you define “serial killer” by relatively strict guidelines, which puts the birth of that type of criminal roughly congruent with the industrial revolution. Spring-Heeled Jack set the tone, and forever after the impression of serial killer as a sexual predator par excellence was locked into the public consciousness.

To the horror genre’s detriment. I’ve long contended that many horror fans (myself included, sometimes) are detail fetishists, focusing on the mechanics of a genre while the greater meaning of an individual story passes us by. So we get into asinine arguments about whether fast or slow zombies are the “real” ones, rather than asking what making a zombie fast or slow means for setting the story’s tone. We talk about “the coolest deaths” of a slasher’s murderous tendencies while completely ignoring the horror of someone’s life ending so badly. Unfortunately, there’s never a shortage of schlock fiction that caters to this lowest common denominator.

So it is with serial killers. In the hands of the laziest creators, they are merely a checklist for interesting quirks upon which a simplistic, Pop Psychology 101 explanation can be framed. History of abuse: Check. Sexual fixation/rage toward parent of opposite gender: Check. Preferred style of murder: Check. Readout of victim preference: Check. Throw in some titillation and you’ve got solid gold.

Against this paint-by-numbers style of villain, an equally unimaginative protagonist can be crafted. You know, the noble loner type. Set the two in opposition to each other, perhaps make it personal for the protagonist, end everything in a final cat-and-mouse chase and tada! You’ve just paid Ashley Judd’s mortgage for another year.

It’s too bad. The pattern of deaths in a hack-fiction serial killer’s bibliography is most often used simply as build-up for the final showdown, a way to build tension before you get to the stuff that “really” matters. Quantity over quality. Milestones on the way to a more traditional conflict. It’s kind of an unimaginative way to utilize the stark raving insanity of carefully plotted mass murder. Even the story of a single murder, driven by passion, can have enough mileage to last decades, centuries, even millenia (Exhibit A: Cain and Abel.) Serial killers are perhaps the easiest way for a writer to explore what it is that makes a person tick, how the concept of “sins of the father” manifests in real life through damage carried from one generation to the next, and the insurmountable chasms that separate every human being from everyone else. Murder is one of the most intimate acts anyone can ever commit, yet everything about it screams of callousness, of a lack of fundamental empathy. Viewed in that light, it’s impossible for anyone involved – murderer, victim, witness – to come off as cool or sexy.

That’s it for this week. I’m going to hit a gay bar now, and go home with the quiet, slightly awkward guy. That should work out well for me.

FOLLOW-UP FROM LAST WEEK: I went and saw Hostel. I enjoyed it, though I’m still not quite ready to call Eli Roth the second coming or anything. I know a few critics felt the movie expressed a xenophobic point of view – don’t leave the USA or terrible things will happen to you!—but I don’t buy it. That stranger-in-a-strange-land style of story has always been about putting people out of their comfort zones, whether it be cityfolk in the country (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc) or small-town folks in the big city (Rosemary’s Baby, etc). I can do a more extensive write-up on Hostel if you want, but it’ll have to be another time. I’m running out of room here.

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