9. Patrick Bateman - American Psycho
Bateman is incredible. Despite audiences being divided into two camps as to whether or not he was who he said he was or did what he said he did, it doesn't matter. This is a truly touched individual who's dealing with some big issues in a very violent way. If you've read the book you know that the film is fairly tame in comparison considering some of the sadistic things Bateman puts his victims through. But the thing about him that has helped define him as one of film's greatest serial killers is Christian Bale's incredible performance. Every ounce of it is absolute brilliance and is one of my favorite performances of his. The sheer 80's-ness of it all adds to camp but also helps make Bateman seem shockingly real. Lost in a world of consumerism and following blindly just to feel as if you belong, willing to kill just to feel real, that's all the kind of things we deal with every day. The grandiosity of his crimes aside, what motivates Bateman is very authentic and oddly eerie as one has to wonder, just how many of these Wall Street yuppies actually consider doing the kinds of things Bateman does because they believe they'll get away with it? Obviously not many, but the general notion, that spoiled children of privilege who grow into adulthood and have no concept of how to fit in or no understanding of consequences for their actions make perfect candidates for serial killers. When not even all the money in the world can buy excitement in your life one may turn to killing to satisfy their lust for living on the edge. Granted that's a theory but, if any bit of that's true, that means there could be hundreds of Patrick Bateman's populating the world and we would
never even know it..