Iconic R-Rated Slasher Satire On Netflix Makes You Question Reality
Want the best breakdown of a high-end business card that you’ll likely ever see on the big or small screen? Well then, do I ever have the movie for you? When it comes to cult classic films that completely flip your brain around almost throughout, few do it better than American Psycho.
Though now decades old, the flick’s themes still very much hold up, and the reality-bending slasher satire elements have kept it as entertaining as ever. Even better, you can stream it on Netflix now.
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American Psycho
American Psycho originally came out in 2000, an adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 novel of the same name. The movie is set in the 1980s with Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman, a wealthy and (overly) polished New York City investment banker, increasingly at odds with his inner and outer persona.
The issue at hand is that while he is dealing in the city’s upper echelon of wealth and power by day, there’s this other little thing biting at him from the sides. Mostly, that he’s kind of gotten a hankering for being a serial killer.
A Serial Killer
American Psycho all starts “innocently” enough, with Bateman getting a bit too miffed about the “perfect” design of a colleague’s business card. So, he does what anyone out there would do in a similar situation. He goes out and kills a homeless guy.
This, in turn, leads to Bateman leveling up and just going after the colleague himself, in this case Jared Leto’s Paul Allen. How dare he have a better life, more money, and gasp, a better business card? The horror.
Bloody But Funny
American Psycho goes on from there, venturing further and further into the inner (psycho) psyche of Patrick Bateman as he becomes significantly bolder in his quest to feed this inner monster.
The movie is bloody and yet weirdly funny at the same time. While a slasher on the surface, it plays with reality, calling into question what is happening in real life as compared to what might just be happening in Bateman’s own head. It’s not always easy to tell.
American Psycho Cast
Outside of Christian Bale and Jared Leto, the rest of the American Psycho cast is A+ level as well with Willem Dafoe, Reece Witherspoon, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, and Chloe Sevigny along for the ride. Each fits in perfectly with the tone and style of the flick.
A Satire At Heart
At its heart, American Psycho is more a satirization of New York in the 1980s (and maybe still today) with commentary on yuppie culture, status and influence, and aspects of wealth most Americans couldn’t even imagine. And yet, it’s also starkly juxtaposed with Bale’s Bateman getting as bloody as possible.
American Psycho On Netflix
American Psycho is incredibly graphic in nature, with more than enough violence, blood, and sex to earn the R rating. And it, of course, stirred significant controversy when it first released especially where violence against women was concerned.
Mary Harron directed American Psycho and also handled script-writing duties, no small feat seeing as how many had thought Easton Ellis’s original novel would be basically impossible to ever make into a movie.
But good news, they did it. And you can stream American Psycho on Netflix now.
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