Why do people like stories about serial killers so much? M Night Shyamalan’s 2024 film Trap is a useful film to answer that question; the plot centers a serial killer named Cooper Abbott (Josh Hartnett) who also happens to be a suburban dad; the plot hook is that he has taken his daughter to a concert and immediately discovers the police know he’s going to be there and intend to, uh… ensnare him. From a plot level, this is compelling because there are very clear stakes – we know the resources of the police, we know people are generally averse to serial killers being free, we know what happens to serial killers in jail. Taking the story at its most literal, most people don’t approve of multiple murders and would enjoy seeing a serial killer get caught.
But I think there’s more to it than that, and Shyamalan’s film points to why. The interesting thing about Trap is that, yes, it’s a product of a visionary director who is very much inserting his own quirks, interests, and beliefs into a film, but he’s also aiming to generate a very typical and straightforward genre exercise. At its best, the combination of the two gives more intense emotion and feeling to typical expectations of the genre.
What I’m thinking of specifically is the scenes where Cooper finds himself having to talk to another parent he hates.
The most celebrated aspect of Trap is Hartnett’s performance; people often use the phrase “person suit” in describing how he switches between methodical sociopath and the mask he wears as a normal, loving family guy. When Cooper finds himself trapped (eh? eh?) in a conversation with the mother of one of his daughter’s ex-friends over their personal drama, I found myself thinking: minus the context of being a serial killer, this exact scene must have happened to Shyamalan.
The question isn’t just “why do people like serial killers?”, it’s “why do people like stories from the perspective of the serial killer?”. Again, the literal answer is that people would like to murder people, but as someone who grew up through the “video games make you violent” controversies of the 00’s, while I concede this true in a limited way, it fails to capture the vast majority of people who enjoy stories about serial killers, and especially people enjoy the one specific story about a serial killer.
Stories are about emotions, and movies especially, even exclusively so. With Trap in particular, we’re in the head of a guy surrounded by the trappings of upper-middle class suburbia and mostly indifferent to them beyond their utility to him. There’s two things here; the first is that we all have to mask from time to time; I get the impression that neurotypicals get a real kick out of it. My sister once told me the pleasure of insincerity was matching the energy of the person opposite you.The second is the specific feeling of moral Otherness. By definition, almost any belief or action that makes you feel out of step with the morality of your situation – indifference to pop music, pleasure at violent media, opposition to genocide – is probably less extreme than murderin’ people. For two hours, you’re with someone in a situation you can relate to on a base level, even if the way they express it is totally alien to you.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Year of the Month
A man's attitude goes some ways to the way his [movie interpretation] will be. Is that somethin' you might agree with?
Year of the Month Spinning fictional plates, doing good, and the sainthood of an author.
Department of
Conversation
Ask me why I liked Dexter and I don’t think I can entirely tell you. Maybe because he was, most of the time, a serial killer we could root for. Maybe because the acting was generally good. It’s hard to say, years after watching it – I have not had access to the second series and I still have no idea if I want to watch it – what it was that kept me going through the entire show, including the weird season with Edward James Olmos as a surprise ghost that should have really killed my interest in the rest of the show.
With Dexter, I think it would be that the lead character has a rich personality and strongly considered views on the world that make him interesting, on top of his extreme behaviour.
My husband and I are rewatching Dexter at the moment after checking out the new series – I would wholeheartedly recommend Resurrection and Original Sin as capturing the spirit of the early seasons.
What did we watch?
Happy Endings, Season Two, Episode Seven, “Full Court Dress”
“It’s not all Jane’s fault, I mean, my smoothies budget is out of control.”
“… I swam as a kid.”
“Another tattoo, huh, obviously you don’t want to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.”
“I’m gonna have these two calling me Aunty Penny before Jeffery Scrotum can get to a thousand friends.”
“I can feel you measuring me.”
“I gotta get going, he gets super horny around noon! But who doesn’t, am I right?”
“Guys, I made us cantaloupe in the shape of… dolls.”
“I want a tattoo!”
“Cool. Cool. I know a guy who does kids.”
“To be fair, I’m their real uncle. Blood is thicker than annoying.”
“I said I had a thing, man, I was in the clear!”
“I play to win. Even though we lost.”
“Pass me the baton, Max. I need them to love me.”
“There’s no way two guys have two different things two days in a row!”
“Hey Billie. You look racist.”
“Bro. Hey. When I said ‘surprise me’, I didn’t mean by bringing me a terrible sandwich.”
“On the other hand, what does it say that neither of were surprised when he taunted a polar bear into a murderous rage?”
“Is he in heaven now?”
“Who knows?”
Live Music
We saw three acts. Charlie Hex, a guitarist who had real 90’s vibe to her songwriting and guitar playing; it was just her and her electric guitar, but she had the vibe of a full band, and a charming self-deprecating sense of humour. Catholic Easter Colours were an electro-trance band; the music was alright, but we were shocked and horrified by how little the lead singer was wearing – not because we’re prudes, but because it’s near the dead of winter here. Luckily we quickly figured out she was on drugs. There was Raspberry Terrapin, who my partner had shown me before but had their full band this time, and it was great because they had more control over the energy of the music and a really great energy between the two lead singers. Finally, there was Colonial Bouncing Dogs, which was just great pub rock with big personalities.
Wooooo live music! Wooooo the warmth and confidence of drugs!
Woooooo live music!!
Spider-Noir, “Nightmare on a Gurney” – The title is accurate as Ben, captured by the scientist trying to find a cure for the mutations that afflict others in much worse ways than “became a hero” and then operated on, has nightmares. The first two thirds of the episode are very good body horror fantasy. The last third is far more conventional and also makes less sense. The flashbacks to Ben’s early days with his powers are effective and also boast pretty good deaging of Cage. And for the first time, we are told that Ben changed his name but not why.
Columbo, “Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health” – What if the host of America’s Most Wanted was not John Walsh but a self-proclaimed security expert who was desperate to hide his appearance in a porno film? What if that host killed a TV reporter who had a copy of the porno film, using a cigatette laced with nicotine. A fairly standard issue ABC era Columbo that is of course padded out, but also is good at showing us Columbuo’s detective skills. George Hamilton s the killer – returing years after his first go round at the murderer of the week – and is pretty good. Other familiar faces include Penny Johnson (DS9) and Robert Donner (Mork and Mindy).
Elementary, “Ready or Not” – A psychiatrist who is also a prepper goes missing. Was he killed because he was selling opiates to drug dealers? Or because he found that another prepper’s luxury bunker was a fraud? Interesting mystery though the pieces don’t quite connect. Great line from Sherlock about the fears of preppers: “nuclear war, global pandemic, socialist zombies eating their guns.” Meanwhile, Sherlock and his neuroatpical girlfriend struggle a bit as he is trying too hard not to rush things, and has to confess to her that he’s actually less experienced with relationships! Kind of sweet.
Barney Miller, “The Social Worker” – The title refers to Barney’s wife Liz, who has a case in the South Bronx (going through its nadir at the time), and leaving Barney nearly in a panic. But Liz has a job to do and is not scared, jsut annoyed at him. Meanwhile, a check forger with an incredible talent for writing other people’s signatures is arrested, and Inspector Luger desperately wants an autographed baseball Wojo has. You can see how this dovetails. Pretty okay but more of a time capsule about how scared everyone was of the South Bronx.
MLB, Cards-Phils – A pretty run of the mill game until the bottom of the ninth, when the Phils scored six runs with two outs to come back and win 6-4. I know i am supposed to hate the Phils as a Mets fan but that was too exciting to hate.
Twin Peaks, S2 finale – the black lodge stuff is killer Lynch weirdness, of course. Nadine getting her memory back just as Ed and Norma are about to finally start their new life together is pretty brutal. There are some slightly odd choices elsewhere, apparently it was a Lynch-enforced choice to bring back several characters who hadn’t been seen in a while (including Sylvia Horne very briefly, a choice which presumably led to basically every viewer saying “wait, who was that again?”). That plot about Donna’s parents really is a dud. But once everything kicks into gear for Cooper’s hunt for Annie in The Weirdest Place Ever it’s fantastic stuff, and there’s so much stuff here that Lynch runs with in The Return – the deliberately slow scene in the Twin Peaks Savings & Loan feels like it’s the blueprint for big chunks of the later series.
I definitely saw the flaws a little more this time, watching through closer to an episode-a-week schedule rather than binging. But it remains one of the greats! Excited to revisit Fire Walk With Me and then finally get around to the Return rewatch I’ve been slightly scared to do for years, because of how much the end of THAT affected me.
Seinfeld, S9 “The Merv Griffin Show” – Kramer turning his apartment into a talk show is ridiculous and fun. Jerry drugging his girlfriend so that he can play with her vintage toy collection is another step down the “these people really are awful” path towards Always Sunny. Elaine’s job dilemma is a weaker storyline, but uses J Peterman well for the first time in a while. George’s storyline didn’t quite work for me because his guest-star girlfriend is horrified with him from the first scene of the episode, so there’s nowhere really to go from there.
One thing that gets me is that I always used to forget that the climactic surreal, scary sequence is scored with surf music. Also great: the finale in The Black Lodge explains exactly what it’s doing, beat by beat – the bit where Cooper goes back and the Man From Another Place yells “Wrong way!” feels straight out of a video game from ten years later.
Cape Fear — original flavor! Scorsese’s remake changes our hero from a prosecutor who righteously witnesses against the villain to a defense attorney who sabotages his own case and this makes things very productively thorny, but what is interesting here is how easy it is to root against Peck anyway. Peck’s stiff righteousness is annoying and his abuse of the law with buddy Martin Balsam is really bullshit, it rules to see Mitchum get over on them at their own game and his sleazy charisma is off the charts. But then he talks about what he did to his wife. And then he assaults Barrie Chase. And Max Cady is a monster. Both of these things are filmed in accordance with 1962 standards (although apparently censors made significant cuts) and both are as brutal as anything Scorsese comes up with, Bernard Hermann’s score is relentless but J. Lee Thompson’s direction, off-kilter yet somehow detached, makes the violence more upsetting for its matter-of-factness. Interestingly, the movie ends differently than both book and remake, and morally it sort of has to (Peck’s convoluted trap that once again involves legal monkey business would be absurd if it’s just to ice Mitchum) but there is some sadism here as well that points toward Thompson’s swan song, the infamously vile Cannon Bronson flick Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects. Anyway, a stone classic with a very funny blink-and-you-miss-it background gag, where the duty roster at the police station in Savannah lists several names of cops from Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels — what the hell are they doing there?
Fuzz — what the hell are the cops of the 87th Precinct (which is in a fictional but obvious riff on NYC) doing in Boston? This leads to some inaccuracies (“the mayor’s mansion” comes into play and L O L) but those are easily overlooked, the deeper problem here is tone. McBain adapted his own novel here, I haven’t read this particular story but I have read a decent amount of 87th Precinct books and I can tell that he kept the plot very close to the book, it follows a structure he’s used of various cases of differing priority being investigated at the same time and in the end, three of them come together unexpectedly but narratively satisfyingly. In theory — in practice, the movie’s multiple threads are poorly paced and wildly out of whack, the major case involves some dudes casually assassinating city officials as part of an extortion scheme that is eventually carried out against a totally unrelated person, it’s baffling stuff that is all the more confusing because no one really seems to give a shit that the deputy mayor etc. are being blown up in car bombs, it’s JUST ANOTHER DAAAAAAAAAAAAAY apparently (and Tom Skerritt is here looking like 70s Horndog Dutch Wagenbach). The real vibe, as indicated by the goofy and raunchy cartoon one-sheet, is M*A*S*H and this just does not fit at all. A very odd and not successful duck that nonetheless was filmed entirely in 1972 Boston and has a ton of great old scenery, an ideal TUBI watch.
Ricky Jay And His 52 Assistants — a master at work, there is pleasure watching that of course but Jay’s verve invites more than pleasure, he wants wonder and he gets it. The good rip of this is on YouTube, it should be in the Criterion Collection.
Buffet Infinity – Sometimes feels too long like many horror films adapted from an original short but it is by leaps and bounds more successful than similar film WKUK Halloween Special in creating a menacing, distinctive horror story via television broadcast and commercial parody, and it even successfully breaks the format near the end. Cosmic horror via “support your local small business” (and one thing that feels especially 2020’s is how a lot of the local businesses start rallying around this obviously evil corporation).
Aang The Last Airbender – My friend made me watch this, luckily I had an edible and it disappointed her enough that I could mock it with little pushback. Already didn’t like Avatar and this somehow made it worse by having these adults still act like fucking babies – Aang has no idea that power could corrupt which makes more sense when you’re an eight year old, and not a large man – and less fluid animation. Sokka continues to suck shit except for “My girlfriend turned into the moon” which was undeniably funny. This franchise sucks and I am proud of my hater status.
Tales From The Crypt – First two S4 episodes. Gets a little too Cinemax in the editing and filmmaking here, when did those get started? Still fun and Dylan McDermott is a good noir sleazebag in his appearance.
Glad to find someone else who doesn’t like ATLA. I have spent years getting weird looks from people when I say I only manages five episodes before bouncing off. (Even people who think I am weird not liking Babylon 5 don’t give me that look.)
Well, it’s for children is the thing, and while I still enjoy Batman, this is more pronouncedly for children than Batman in it’s approach.
I like a lot of stuff meant for kids but yeah, this one baffles me in how many adults got into it without watching along with kids.
Got to be an essay in what makes me watch certain cartoons and things meant for kids and what annoys me with most of Avatar.
What did we play?
Super Mario Bros. 2 – NES Virtual Console on New Nintendo 3DS
Re-started my playthrough, I’m roughly halfway through. My aim is to shoot through every level as fast as possible and not take warps or detours, but it’s not as simple as it sounds. By the second world very few levels are a straight shot, which is a fun thing to rediscover this time.
With Trap specifically, the actual serial killing is kept at arm’s length for much of the movie, right? Just a guy on the other end of a phone, and I think this is very intentional in order to keep the audience on Hartnett’s side. Hartnett being a serial killer is the impetus for the plot, which is Guy Has To Get Out Of A Jam and that is a universal story that everyone loves. Shyamalan cleverly tweaks this into Girl Has To Get Out Of A Jam later on, but once Hartnett starts magically de-jamming himself (and, not coincidentally, when the actual consequences of serial killing come into play), the movie loses a lot of steam.
Except for disagreeing about the cleverness of Girl, Jam, etc, I agree there.
“For two hours, you’re with someone in a situation you can relate to on a base level, even if the way they express it is totally alien to you.” I have talked about this before but I identify strongly with Tom Ripley in Patricia Highsmith’s books not because he’s a sociopathic criminal but because I can understand why and how he masks, and how he approaches a hostile world. There’s a beat here where Hartnett’s character listens to his daughter describe her issues at school, and he says “Interesting” exactly the way I would, without judgment and without reciprocity exactly. He’s trying to understand.
Year of the Month update!
This September, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 1937.
Sept. 4th: Gillian Nelson: Moose Hunters
Sept. 6th: Tristan J. Nankervis: Lenin in October
Sept. 18th: Gillian Nelson: Pluto’s Quin-pup-lets
Sept. 20th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Hobbit
Sept. 22nd: Lauren James: Stage Door
Sept. 25th: Gillian Nelson: Donald’s Ostrich
And there’s still time to write up any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 2001 for this month!
TBD: James Williams: Millennium Actress
Aug. 27th: Cori Domschot: The Mummy Returns
Aug. 28th: Gillian Nelson: Walt Disney Treasures