The Serial Killer in Cinema
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Abstract
Kimberley Tyrrell is PhD student at The University of New South Wales. email: kimberleytyrrell@hotmail.com ©2001 Kimberley Tyrrell (text) ©2001 Jane Cafarella (cartoon) As Andrew Tudor has shown in his study of the horror film, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of films featuring psychotic or disturbed individuals as killers or monster-figures since the 1960s, replacing more conventional forms of threat such as vampires, werewolves, or aliens. This psychologically troubled character has increasingly taken the form of the serial killer since the term was coined by FBI agent Robert Ressler in the 1970s. The serial killer, briefly, is characterised by several key elements, though these are often debated. The official FBI definition is ‘three or more separate events with an emotional cooling-off period between homicides, each murder taking place at a different location’. In addition, although this is more contentious, the killer is most frequently a white, single, middle-class, heterosexual male, aged 20–40. Often abused as a child and from a dysfunctional and disadvantaged family, they exhibit a history of violence and possess above-average intelligence, are employed, and able to function in social situations.