90s/00s Serial Killer Cringe...
After the success of 'Silence of the Lambs' (legitimately great movie, even if it romanticises serial killers), Hollywood became fixated with a weird, very specific image of the serial killer...
Serial killers were super-duper-intelligent, quirky geniuses, dominating police in an intellectual game of cat-and-mouse, where only THE VERY BEST detectives could keep up with them; They deliberately leave exotic clues to their true identity, using anagrams, obscure references to ancient mythology, haikus and sodoku puzzles, like some fart-huffing version of the villains from Scooby Doo cartoons, or the Riddler in the campy 60's version of Batman...
...except all that is just as fictional as the idea that crimes get solved by guys wearing tights, masks, and capes, with mild-mannered alter-egos; In reality, serial killers are statistically LOWER than average IQ, not higher. They're hard to catch, not because they're so smart and highly-skilled, but because murderers are typically caught due to their MOTIVE- Cops follow the money, or who the victim had sexual relations with, which leads you to killer... But how do you do that, when THERE IS NO real "motive"?!? When the victim was just a random target of opportunity, who happened to stray into the wrong place, at the wrong time?
(today, with DNA-mapping tech, even THAT kind of motiveless murder is often solvable. But 20 or 30 years ago, that tech was much less advanced, much more expensive, and DNA databases of criminals didn't exist yet)
IRL, serial killers aren't Hannibal Lecter. They're 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer'- A dumb drifter, drunkenly killing easy targets for the $30 in the victims pocket, and their 20 year old Dodge Neon. These aren't exotic, intellectual crimes carried out like some kind of edgelord, 170iq conceptual art-piece. They're lazy, dumb, ugly street-crimes commited by morons.
Below are the movies which created that myth of the big-brain, rockstar-serial killer, who quotes 17th century French literature, and leaves origami animals at the murder scene...
Serial killers were super-duper-intelligent, quirky geniuses, dominating police in an intellectual game of cat-and-mouse, where only THE VERY BEST detectives could keep up with them; They deliberately leave exotic clues to their true identity, using anagrams, obscure references to ancient mythology, haikus and sodoku puzzles, like some fart-huffing version of the villains from Scooby Doo cartoons, or the Riddler in the campy 60's version of Batman...
...except all that is just as fictional as the idea that crimes get solved by guys wearing tights, masks, and capes, with mild-mannered alter-egos; In reality, serial killers are statistically LOWER than average IQ, not higher. They're hard to catch, not because they're so smart and highly-skilled, but because murderers are typically caught due to their MOTIVE- Cops follow the money, or who the victim had sexual relations with, which leads you to killer... But how do you do that, when THERE IS NO real "motive"?!? When the victim was just a random target of opportunity, who happened to stray into the wrong place, at the wrong time?
(today, with DNA-mapping tech, even THAT kind of motiveless murder is often solvable. But 20 or 30 years ago, that tech was much less advanced, much more expensive, and DNA databases of criminals didn't exist yet)
IRL, serial killers aren't Hannibal Lecter. They're 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer'- A dumb drifter, drunkenly killing easy targets for the $30 in the victims pocket, and their 20 year old Dodge Neon. These aren't exotic, intellectual crimes carried out like some kind of edgelord, 170iq conceptual art-piece. They're lazy, dumb, ugly street-crimes commited by morons.
Below are the movies which created that myth of the big-brain, rockstar-serial killer, who quotes 17th century French literature, and leaves origami animals at the murder scene...
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