Serial Killer Psychopaths Are Compelling Subjects for Study

According to the FBI, serial murders attract disproportionate attention from the media and moviegoers. At the same time, that the number of actual serial killers has diminished since the 1990s. Using forensic psychologist Robert Hare's criteria, some 85 percent of serial killers are psychopaths. Not all psychopaths are murderers. Their field of operation can be in business and politics. What violence they do is not physical.

Serial killers who are also psychopaths intrigue, whether one reads about them in a bestseller or watches them on the screen. It does not matter if they are actual serial killers or brilliantly imagined fictional characters. Movies embellish the psychopath for the sake of dramatic impact on viewers. Think of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs or Joaquin Phoenix in The Joker. The online film publication Collider says the best portrayal of a psychopath is in No Country for Old Men (2007), with Oscar-winning Javier Bardem playing Anton Chigurh. Bardem is a focused, deliberate, not impulsive, goal-directed, dispassionate killer. He recovers the money from a drug deal gone wrong, stolen by an unlucky Vietnam vet, tracked down and killed by Javier. For him, killing is a business. To get to the vet, he dispassionately murders several others.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), a black-and-white film, is based on a true-to-life psychopath. Initially, it received an X rating and a limited run at movie theaters because of its violence. It tells the story of Henry Lee Lucas, a remorseless, impulsive, narcissistic serial killer. Roger Ebert, who gave the film three and a half stars, states, "The movie contains scenes of charmless, heartless, and shocking violence committed by characters who seem to lack the ordinary feelings of common humanity."

Henry is not a sexual predator but is an indiscriminate killer. Henry, played by Michael Rooker, is released from prison after killing his prostitute mother, who spent years sexually torturing her son. He moves in with Otis, a jail mate (Tom Towles), whom he takes on killing sprees that intensify when Otis's sister, Becky (Tracy Arnold), arrives. Becky's romantic interest confuses Henry. He kills Otis and deposits Becky's bloodied suitcase containing her remains on the roadside as he leaves town. The movie's meager budget and the indiscriminate, uncomplex violence ultimately found a widespread audience.

Woman of the Hour (2023), a feature-length film on Netflix, receives 91 percent on the Rotten Tomatoes meter. It is based on a true story about a 1978 dating game TV show. Rodney Alcala, a charming guest contestant and a photographer, is one of three men who could be chosen to date the lovely woman played by Anna Kendrick. What is not known is that Rodney Alcala was in the middle of a murder spree, a skilled seducer, a sexually motivated serial killer with more than a hundred estimated murders attributed to him. Anna Kendrick also directs this terrifyingly scary, fast-moving film.

The serial killer psychopaths in these three films have different temperaments and motivations, but they share a desire to kill. Psychology offers complex biological, behavioral, and psychodynamic pathways to explain their murders. Anton and Rodney were not impulsive; Both were employed. They planned their murders and took few chances; both men were skilled and confident, though Rodney had a sense of bravado akin to narcissism as he believed himself able to fool the show's participants. Genetics plus Henry's childhood severe abuse and neglect left him burdened with unmanageable anxiety and thus was more impulsive. This impeded any chance he could develop brakes on his frustration and impulsivity, hindering learning and impeding his future.

It has been found that psychopathic traits confer an evolutionary advantage, such as in the hunter-gatherer world of kill or being killed. A research study by John Verano, a biological anthropologist from Tulane University; Vivien Standen, of the University of Tarapacá, Chile; and colleagues examined 288 fractured skulls found in Chile, dating from 10,000 B.C. to 1450 A.D., and determined that the lethal skull fractures likely occurred because of competition for resources and the building of tension within these isolated communities.

"These results indicate that violence was a consistent part of the lives of these ancient populations for many millennia. The absence of a centralized political system during this time might have led to the consistency of violent tensions in the region. It’s also possible that violence resulted from competition for resources in the extreme environment of the desert, a factor which might have become exacerbated as farming became more prominent and widespread."

Though psychopathy continues to have an evolutionary advantage in being unrestricted by moral and societal limitations, serial murders, which are done primarily by psychopaths, have decreased.