How are serial killers presented in film compared to

real life.
Serial killers are a total mystery to us; understanding how someone could take a life away
from someone in some of the most horrific ways you could think of. I have always been
interested in how people think and serial killers are so difficult to understand. There are
some who think that serial killers are the way they are because of their up-bringing; trauma;
or some sort of injury to the head, but there is no way of knowing how people are the way
they are.

The reasoning for why I am going to go through how serial killers are presented in film is
because there is no way of knowing what is going on inside of a serial killer's head. Most
films like to portray serial killers in film as these scary monsters but with no one knowing how
a serial killer thinks there is no way of knowing the most accurate way to communicate these
characters, especially when we don’t know who the serial killers actually are such as the
Zodiac Killer.

The Zodiac Killer was an unknown serial killer active in the 1960s to the 1970s who sent
messages to the press saying that he was The Zodiac; saying that he was going to kill
people and why he wanted to kill them. With these unsettling messages came a coded letter
that Zodiac would tell the press to put into the papers otherwise he was going to do some
horrifying things. People never found out who The Zodiac really was and they arrested a
man thinking it was him however there was nothing saying that they got the wrong person as
there was little to no evidence telling the police that this was the right guy. The only thing that
they had against the man they caught was that there were similarities in handwriting and his
behaviour. The man died later from a heart attack and the letters to the press stopped, but
there is speculation that The Zodiac stopped sending these messages after this man’s death
to blend back in with the crowd and get away.

There was a film made about The Zodiac Killer called Zodiac. The film told the story about
how a cartoonist in the press went further into his research about The Zodiac. You never see
who The Zodiac is in the film as they really play with the fact that people never really knew
who the real Zodiac was. They use shadows to hide Zodiac’s face when he appears in the
film; and the only time you see Zodiac is when he is killing people. Shadows are a massive
stereotype in the representation of serial killers in film. As serial killers are seen as these
mysterious beings and they are represented as monsters, people think of them as just
shadows in the night, being able to go out and kill people without anyone noticing and they
just blend back in with the rest of the world.

The odd thing about The Zodiac Killer was that he wanted the public attention “he’s in it for
the press” Zodiac (2007); making people wear badges and if they didn’t there was going to
be some terrifying consequences. Another serial killer that wanted the public's attention was
Dennis Neilsen, a serial killer in London in the 1980s.

Dennis Neilsen also wanted the press’s attention by asking a writer to visit him in prison
when he was arrested for the suspected murder of 15 people, asking him to write a book
about him and why he killed all of these innocent people.
When people think about serial killers they think of a crazy, mad man who has lost it and
resorted to killing, as that is what we always see in film. I created a questionnaire asking
people about what they thought a serial killer looked like and the most common answer was
“anyone”, however in the next question I asked “when you think of a serial killer do you
picture a man or a woman” and 86% of people said man. There are more commonly known
male serial killers in the world however that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any female killers.
In film we see little to no female serial killers and that is why people assume that all serial
killers are white men; the majority of serial killers are white men however there is a huge lack
of representation of any other people being serial killers. You will see in most films regarding
serial killers are men. An example of this is Michael Myers, Carpenter, John, director.
Halloween. Universal Studios, 1978; Jigsaw and a recent film called Happy Death Day. All of
these films follow the stereotype that men can only be serial killers.

Most female serial killers actually have the most brutal reasons behind them as women
typically will make things personal; you can see in cases which involve women how
idiosyncratic the murders can be. Katherine Knight is a great example of this (although she
is not a serial killer she is a vicious killer). Katherine Knight killed her partner (John) as he
didn’t want to get married as the relationship was extremely toxic and Knight was incredibly
horrible to him to the point where John had said to his co-workers “if he doesn't come up to
work call the police because Katherine killed him”. Police then came to the house and saw
blood everywhere. There was skin hanging inside of the house as you walked through the
door; there was also a torso lying on the floor. As they proceeded into the kitchen they found
that there was food on the table and a head on the stove; turns out the food on the table was
John. Katherine had cooked his body and was going to feed John to his kids. This really
shows you how personal female cases can be but film doesn’t show you as they mostly
show male murderer cases due to the whole stereotype of serial killers just being male.
Bailey Sarian. (2019, February 11). The Woman Hannibal Lecter - Katherine Knight - GRWM
- Murder, Mystery & Makeup | Bailey Sarian [Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QOOrKY_aJ0&t=1165s

In all of the films mentioned (not including Des), the genre is horror/thrillers; this shows you
exactly how film presents serial killers: as horror film characters making them seem more
like a character than a real person especially with the costumes that the characters wear in
the films. Michael Myers, Jigsaw and the killer in Happy Death Day all wear masks to fit with
the monster stereotype; making the characters seem as least human as they can to make
them seem like monsters. The use of the masks are to make the killers seem as emotionless
as possible, film uses this as a way of visually showing how characters have a lack of
empathy and emotion.This stereotype of serial killers being emotionless people is something
that has been used in films for years with Halloween being made in 1978 where Michael
Myers goes round killing loads of people. The lack of dialogue from Michael Myers also
enforces this stereotype as he then doesn’t feel human as we never hear him speak.

Serial killers are presented as crazy people shown in Halloween and Halloween 2 where
they bring Michael Myers into an insane asylum suggesting that Myers is insane, however
when looking into the case about Dennis Nielsen it very much does not seem that way.
When Neilsen was being charged for the murders of his victims he was asked if he pleaded
guilty or not guilty: Nielsen pleaded not guilty saying he wasn’t in the right headspace and he
had no control of his actions, basically calling himself crazy. However in the further
investigation to prove that Neilsen was in the right headspace they were able to prove he
was lying. Neilsen would prey on young men and take them home to kill them; and when he
would hide their bodies he would cut them up and burn the different parts of the bodies, the
part where he was proven to be completely sane was how Neilsen would burn tires to cover
up the smell of the burning bodies. No one who was insane would think into that much detail.
This shows that to some level serial killers are still sane people but you never really see that
part of them as the media wants to present them as these inhumane people.

The only film that doesn’t try to present the killer as inhumane in that way is Des. Even the
genre of the 3 part series is a part of the crime genre. The series really stuck with the real
story of what happened with Dennis Neilen not straying too far from what happened and
keeping it as real as it could be. Des was able to show people exactly what the serial killer
Dennis Neilsen was really like as in most types of media you never really see a killer's
personality as they are presented as not having a personality at all; they are just this blank
slate that has this need to kill. David Tennent had looked into who Neilsen was to play the
role as best as he could; making sure that he was going to give a very believable
performance. “It was a useful starting point to see how he moved and how he sounded, as
there are vocational bits of audio around him, too. And of course the notebooks - he wrote
and wrote and wrote in prison” - Craig, D. (2021, January 7). David Tennant reveals how he
stepped into the role of serial killer Dennis Nilsen for ITV drama Des. Radio Times.
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/des-david-tennant-dennis-nilsen-role/
This just shows the level of research that went into creating this series as the aim of the
series was to show exactly who Neilsen was; and you can see that when you watch the
interview with the real Denis Neilsen.

Due to Des being a crime series, the stereotypes that are used for serial killers in
horror/thriller films wouldn’t work. The horror/thriller genre uses the stereotypes to create a
scary atmosphere to make the film entertaining for their audience demographic. If these
horror serial killer films did not use the stereotypes the film would become boring for that
target audience.

When people go to watch a horror film they want a creepy atmosphere and they want jump
scares; suspense; a scary bad guy and a thrilling storyline. Horror is a genre that fully relies
on stereotypes as these stereotypes, The Cabin In The Woods really shows you how
important stereotypes are in the horror genre and jokes about how all horror is really the
same as they use the same metaphorical ingredients to make a film. So it is no wonder that
these serial killer films use stereotypes as the genre is so used to using them that they don’t
really change how they go about making a horror film.

When watching Zodiac you can really see the film is really enforcing serial killers as this bad
guy/murderer in a horror film. You can see this throughout the film when they use camera
angles, when they introduce characters and how they use sound.

In Zodiac they use music to build tension whenever the killer is nearby or when they are
trying to scare the audience by making them think that the killer is close. Horror has been
using this technique for years, and the reason they do this is because it creates anxiety for
the audience; it is just a common convention in the horror genre now; every horror film you
watch will do this. Jaws is a great example of when they use this technique as they use
music to convey to the audience if the shark is close and when it will attack. It is one of the
most well known cases of when this technique is used and since then it’s only been used
more and more in horror films. This is how film is presenting serial killers as horror film
characters, as they use all of the conventions of the horror genre.

You can also tell that they were trying to stick with the horror genre conventions in Zodiak
when you notice how the lighting changes when Robert Downy Jr’s character is going to
meet someone after the audience is told that this may be very dangerous and we see
flickering lights and a very isolating camera angle where you can only see Robert Downy Jr.

There is a reason why they chose to do that and that is because it is easier to create a
horror film when the storyline is about a psycho killer who is killing a mass amount of people.
When you see a case about an unknown man who sent letters to the press about how he
killed people and that it brought joy to him to do so; and not only that he was going to
continue to do so if the police and the press didn’t listen to his demands. Not even to
mention the fact that some letters would have a rag with them which had one of many of the
victim's blood on it; you know that you can easily create a horror film with this as all you have
to do then is follow the codes and conventions of horror to make it more interesting for the
audience.

The real serial killer wasn’t actually found out; the police only suspected a man as there
were some similarities (shown in the film) but they decided that in the film that they were
going to show a physical person to play the role as Zodiak. This was so then they were able
to show the graphic murder scenes to scare the audience.

Most serial killer films really like to show the gore aspect to serial killer cases (which is
another reason why it is easy to create a horror/thriller film about serial killers as it is easy to
show what a killer has done an create a really suspenseful, scary atmosphere from it)
however in the series Des they choose not to show a lot of the gory aspects of the case.
“This is not about glorifying Dennis Neilsen’s own egomania, its not about feeding into is
narcissism” - David Tennant. (2020, September 14). David Tennant on Dennis Nilsen [Video].
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLWaZTkxrFY&feature=youtu.be

There are parts in the series where they mention or give some sort of hint towards some of
the horrifying things Neilsen had done, but to save them from glorifying Neilsen’s murders
they decide to not show any of it. In one of the episodes of Des the investigator walks over to
a pot and goes to open it, however another investigator tells him that he doesn’t want to do
that; after that there is no mention of the pot. However in the documentary about Neilsen you
find out later that he actually decapitated one of his many victims; the head of the victim had
been cooked in this pot for hours; you don’t actually see that in the show as they needed to
be sensitive for the families who were affected by Neilsen. Which compared to other films is
completely different as people now want to see the gore in stories as it makes them more
scary and exciting.
In conclusion serial killers are presented as more of an unrealistic monster character. The
killers are always shown to be these recognisable characters apart from Des’ recreation of
Dennis Neilsen. I think Des really shows you what serial killers are like: normal people. As
Des really just shows you exactly what the real Neilsen was like, and you can really see the
amount of research that has gone into creating such a realistic feeling series.

Personally I think that this works better for a serial killer film. When you have watched a
horror film you know how everything works; how they structure a horror film; how they use
sound; everything that goes into them, so the serial killers don’t feel real as we are used to
seeing these things. Film is so used to presenting killers in films as these horror film
characters that they aren’t presented in an accurate way; showing what a serial killer is.

As film continues I would like to see a change in the way that serial killers are presented as
they are always presented in the same way: the mentally ill, psychopath character. Trying
something different may be scarier for the audience; they will get to see exactly what is
happening and how it is happening around us and we are clueless to it. If film was to make
serial killers more palpable in film we may be able to change the stereotypes of serial killers
which may help us in our understanding of these people.