Last Updated on February 24, 2024
While none of us wants to meet these lurking creeps in real life, serial killers will always have a spot in Hollywood’s film studios. These dark characters provide action, thrills and a close-up look at the disturbed minds of killers – all from the safe distance of your living room! So, if you feel like watching a thriller tonight, go ahead and dare yourself to watch one of our hand-selected scare shows all alone…
1. American Psycho (2000)
Patrick Bateman has a perfect life. He is a wealthy banker in New York and has a cute fiance. But underneath the perfect veneer, Bateman’s psychotic urges are growing.
When a colleague shows him up, jealousy sparks his first act of random murder. But then Bateman begins to methodically lure victims to his apartment and the body count starts to climb.
2. The Lovely Bones (2009)
This movie is a perfect selection if you love sad movies and the supernatural. In this story, Susie is a 14-year-old girl who has her whole life ahead of her. She’s got a crush, her family is happy and she’s got friends. But after she’s murdered by her neighbor, a serial killer named George Harvey, she enters a beautiful world between the living and Heaven.
When Susie learns that her sister is Harvey’s next victim and that her family struggles to heal from her own death, she decides to stay with them. The film is a harrowing story but is told with an exceptional understanding of grief and offers a mesmerizing fictional look at the afterlife.
3. Halloween (2007)
Michael Meyers is a disturbed 10-year-old. One night he snaps and murders his older sister and several other people. Committed to an institution, Michael grows up in near-isolation and becomes obsessed with killing and wearing masks.
In this horror classic, fans are treated to Michael’s rampage as he breaks free and goes after his surviving sister, killing everyone who gets in his way.
4. Halloween II (2009)
In this slasher film, a year has passed since Laurie shot and presumably killed her psychotic brother Michael. The teenager is trying to live a normal life but Michael is determined to reunite with his sister, driven by hallucinations of their mother telling him to find Laurie.
As Michael returns to town on Halloween night, Laurie begins to see visions of her brother’s past and finds herself compelled to re-enact the horrors that he had committed. When the siblings finally meet, the bloodshed makes it hard to tell which one of them is the true psychopath.
5. Seven (1995)
When a vicious serial killer strikes, detectives Mills and Somerset follow a trail of bodies that represent the Seven Deadly Sins. They are unable to catch the killer as the spree continues, although they discover his apartment and several notebooks which betray, unsurprisingly, that the man is a psychopath. However, he is also a brilliant tactician and had planned the seven killings so well that both detectives are swept up in the horrifying conclusion.
6. Foxcatcher (2014)
Based on a true story, Steve Carell gives a magnificent performance as John du Pont, the wealthy owner of Team Foxcatcher, a group of wrestlers training for the 1988 Summer Olympics. Du Pont is obsessed with adding brothers Mark and Dave to his team and he eventually succeeds.
The brothers get everything they desire; the best training, luxury accommodation and a shot at the Olympic gold. But as John’s mental state spirals into paranoia and anger, he estranges his wrestlers. When Dave is asked to compliment John and he gives a lacklustre response, things take a murderous turn.
7. Monster (2003)
Based on a true story, Theron plays Aileen Wuornos, a Florida prostitute who is on the verge of ending her own life. She feels hopeful again after falling in love with a woman called Selby but after Aileen suffers a brutal rape at the hands of one of her clients she kills him in self-defense and decides to look for legitimate work.
But her history as a sex worker closes all doors and Aileen returns to the streets. The movie follows her mental breakdown as she starts to kill and rob her clients and eventually, as she stands trial for her crimes.
8. Prisoners (2013)
Detective Loki is assigned to investigate the disappearance of two small girls, Anna and Joy, who vanished while their families were celebrating Thanksgiving together. A sighting of a suspicious RV leads Loki to arrest a man called Alex but he soon realizes that his IQ is not high enough to make him dangerous.
Frustrated by the suspect’s release, Anna Dover’s father kidnaps and tortures Alex, plunging the families into a moral dilemma of how far they should go to find their daughters. As Loki’s own frustration with the case grows, he discovers that the race against time is inviting his own dark side to emerge.
9. Zodiac (2007)
Based on a true story, this mystery thriller follows the serial killer who called himself the “Zodiac.”
The Zodiac sends an encrypted message to several newspapers, demanding that it be published or he will kill again. Political cartoonist Robert Graysmith works at the San Francisco Chronicle, which also received a letter. Initially excluded from the investigation, Graysmith launches his own investigation which costs him his job and marriage but his search culminates in a best-selling book – and a possible face-to-face meeting with the Zodiac killer.
10. Frailty
Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) confesses to the FBI that he knows who the notorious “God’s Hand” serial killer is. Fenton tells agent Wesley Doyle that their father believed angels pointed out demons to him who pretended to be people and that they had to die. As a result, his two sons grew up as witnesses to multiple murders he committed.
Fenton goes on to claim that his brother continued the holy quest after their father died, burying more victims in a rose garden. But when Fenton takes Doyle to the garden, the truth comes out and everything – including Fenton – takes a horrifying turn.
11. Alex Cross (2012)
Dr Alex Cross is a police officer and psychologist who gets drawn into the deadly world of a serial killer known as Picasso. Leaving behind Picasso-like drawings at each of his murders, the man turns on Alex when the latter prevents the next murder.
Burdened by the killer’s terrible revenge, Cross has to pick up his own shattered life to stop Picasso and also uncover the reason why these particular victims were chosen.
12. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (2002)
In 1846, Benjamin Barker returns to London bent on getting revenge. Fifteen years earlier, his happy family life had been destroyed when a corrupt judge called Turpin had Barker falsely imprisoned, raped his wife and also kidnapped their infant daughter. Now posing as a man called Sweeney Todd, he reopens his old barbershop where he, still feeling very angry at the world, starts to kill people who are then turned into pies by his friend Mrs Lovett.
The dark musical follows Sweeney’s journey of revenge that ultimately destroys his chances of reuniting his family.
13. Sleepy Hollow (1999)
In 1799, police constable Ichabod Crane arrives in the small hamlet of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of murders. All the victims are missing their heads and while the residents blame a supernatural spectre, that of a headless horseman, Crane remains skeptical.
But Crane is forced to abandon his scientific approach when more bodies appear – and so does the horseman, leading him to suspect that someone in the village had summoned the deadly apparition for dark purposes.
14. The Talented Mr Ripley (1999)
In this psychological thriller, Matt Damon gives a stellar performance as Tom Ripley. When he is mistaken for a Princeton classmate of Mr Greenleaf’s son, Dickie, a dangerous sequence of events is unleashed. Mr Greenleaf gives Ripley a luxury trip and allowance to travel abroad and convince Dickie to return to the United States.
After tasting the high life and being treated well after people mistake him for Dickie, Ripley becomes obsessed with taking over his life. After meeting Dickie, their new friendship falls apart as the real man realizes what is happening. But Ripley is determined to become Dickey and has to resort to increasingly violent actions to keep his new identity.