Bryan Singer: His Films Ranked From Worst To Best

It's difficult to envisage this challenging 1998 drama getting made today. In common with Singer's first film Public Access, this Stephen King adaptation centres on a young sociopath whose motives are frequently unclear, and leaves the viewer hard pressed to predict where things are going; yet the results, while often unsettling and thought-provoking, are not entirely satisfying.

Notably, Apt Pupil was the first collaboration between Singer and Ian McKellen, who takes the lead as a Nazi war criminal living in California under a false identity in 1984. Astonishingly though, the iconic actor winds up in the shadow of his young co-star, the late Brad Renfro, who gives a staggeringly powerful performance as a Nazi-fixated youth who discovers McKellen's identity and blackmails him, demanding to hear everything about the old man's work in the concentration camps.

Whereas King's original novella became a serial killer story, Singer and screenwriter Brandon Boyce surprisingly tone down the level of violence and keep the focus squarely on the strange love-hate relationship that grows between these two disparate characters. In a curious way, this makes the tale all the more disturbing, as the growing evilness in both characters is reflected via subtler means than a more cliched killing spree.

When all's said and done, though, Apt Pupil seems more interested in giving viewers something to talk about than actually providing a rewarding viewing experience in its own right. It may provide chills, but it's also liable to leave you cold.