12: American Psycho

Horror and Comedy inherently work well together. When a film ramps up the tension, the audience is looking for an excuse to laugh. A good joke right then would send the entire theater into stitches. That is why so many horror films have unintentionally hilarious bits, little things that wouldn't be noticed in another genre wind up causing gales of laughter in a slasher. The comedy works as a release of tension, essentially working in the same way a cheap jump scare would. Audiences will remember a great bit much more fondly than they will a cat jumping out of a closet at them. As an added bonus, the right brand of pitch black comedy can be funny in the moment, but also deeply disturbing once the laughter dies down. It's very tricky to pull off, but when it works it really works.

American Psycho is the king of disturbing black horror comedies, and it is all because of Christian Bale's performance. He plays Patrick Bateman, the king of vapid consumer culture. The only thing he likes more than reservations at the most expensive restaurant in town is dropping hints about his murderous hobby. He is cold and arrogant, obsessive and cruel. He has no real connection to his friends, they are just people who admire his stuff. He doesn't really know the first thing about them, and they don't really know the first thing about him.

At first, this is played up for some laughs. He and his friends all buy $600 dollar suits, but they all look identical to each other. In their spare time they admire each others business cards. Patrick Bateman almost cries when he realizes that his is inferior to Paul Allen's. No one can tell any of them apart, because they all make such an effort to look “good” that they all look identical. At one point, the whole gang starts making fun of Patrick, not realizing that he was still among them. Even when killings start happening, they somehow wind up funny.

The film never lets up, though. At some point, a switch seems to flip. Patrick Bateman's cold emptiness starts becoming more and more creepy. The character never changes, the film doesn't even really change. It just keeps going, and you start realizing that the film was serious the whole time. The second half doesn't have a whole lot of laughs.

One of the things I like most about the film is what it leaves unstated. In order for his friends to not realize how empty Patrick Bateman really is, how uncaring he is, they would have to be as uncaring themselves. None of them really care about anything, they are all just going through the motions. They go through all of these rituals because that is what normal people do. Any of them could be doing anything and none of us would even know. That's a very scary thought. Their alleged friend is going through a mental breakdown and no one even notices or cares. Even more, we never really know just how much of the film happened, and what bits were all in the main character's head. This is all capped off by one of my favorite lines in film history.

“there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing. "

The ending of the film is that there is no ending. It was all meaningless. It couldn't have ended any other way.