When this film was made, despite the fact that Freud's theories were under attack, the film maker, Claude Chabrol, made a firm statement about what happens when a child's love for his mother is repressed by a father's hostility. In the opening sequence, a wedding, it is established, briefly, that Paul (the butcher)had a dark and unresolved relationship with his father, one that caused him to join the army and resulted in his having seen very little of his cherished mother. When the film begins, Paul and Helene meet and start a friendship that has promise of a relationship. But Helene's unwillingness to become Paul or anyone's lover, because of the pain she endured from a previous relationship, stifles a budding romance. Contrary to turning off Paul, this rejection seems to entice him. He can trust this woman because she is "logical," a word that turns up frequently when the two main characters describe how they run their lives. This "logic" though is not the one we commonly embrace, it is a logic of dark inevitability. Paul, whose father seemed to brutally punish him for his son's aggressiveness (and unconsciously for the boy's possessiveness of his mother), has adjusted to reality by living within the confines of a control in his life that prevents accidents or passions from taking place. He is, in effect, grateful that Helene is not giving him what he wants. Like his desire for his mother still lurks in his unconscious, his desire for Helene is always present - and because Helene has rejected him, like his mother had done, Helene has created a relationship as close to his mother as possible. It is very logical.
The thriller aspect of this film which is about a serial killer finds it's manifestations not in the easy, lurid horror techniques of too many thrillers but in the horror of what's going on within each of the characters - the horror of closeness, a closeness that each fear might kill them. The killings are merely an outward symbol for the internal murder that is going on within each character. The characters who, for years, had been killing themselves emotionally by their repressed desires reach, in this film, a dark emotional catharsis that makes them aware of how their repressed desires have ruined their lives.
The thriller aspect of this film which is about a serial killer finds it's manifestations not in the easy, lurid horror techniques of too many thrillers but in the horror of what's going on within each of the characters - the horror of closeness, a closeness that each fear might kill them. The killings are merely an outward symbol for the internal murder that is going on within each character. The characters who, for years, had been killing themselves emotionally by their repressed desires reach, in this film, a dark emotional catharsis that makes them aware of how their repressed desires have ruined their lives.