Oh, I'm such a weird mom--I read Red Dragon aloud to the kids when they were in high school. (You think they'd have tolerated being read to if I'd kept to age-appropriate material?) I did cough over a word or two, and later learned our son would get up in the night with a flashlight, find the book, and figure out what those bad words were.
Here's my list so far:
American Psycho - A superficial Manhattanite successfully hides his series of murders from his so-called friends
Badlands - Based on the Starkweather-Fugate killing spree of the 1950's, in which a young teen and her older boyfriend start the killing with her family
Blue Velvet - A young man and his girlfriend find evidence of a killer in their town
The Bone Collector - A paralyzed detective uses his knowledge of NYC to track a serial killer
The Boston Stranger - True story of killer whose victims seem randomly chosen
Breakdown - The car breaks down. The wife disappears, and the trucker who gave the wife a lift claims he’s never seen her
Copycat - An agoraphobic expert must help police find a killer copying the world’s most famous murders, using her book as a guideline
Day of the Jackal - An assassin must kill many people to avoid detection and succeed at his mission of killing DeGaulle
Dirty Harry - Renegade cop’s unconstitutional methods set a killer free--and give him a grudge
Dressed to Kill - A cheating housewife is murdered by another patient seeing the same psychiatrist
Ed Gein, a.k.a. In the Light of the Moon - True story of Gein, who dug up bodies and made things of the remains, then ran out of crafting supplies.
The Eyes of Laura Mars - A fashion photographer sees what a serial killer sees as he commits his murders, but the one cop who sort of believes her can’t identify the killer
Gacy - True story of John Wayne Gacy, who entertained kids as a clown, while picking up, sexually torturing, then murdering young men and burying their remains on his suburban property
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer - True story of Henry Lee Lucas, who seemed like a mild-mannered low-key guy dating his roommate’s sister, but routinely thrill killed
Jennifer Eight - A burned-out cop moves to a small town, only to become embroiled in solving a cold case of a serial murderer of blind girls
Kalifornia - A couple researching the sites of serial murders shares a ride with another couple, one of whom is a serial killer himself
Klute - Small town detective seeking missing man finds the prostitute who may have information is being stalked by a killer
Manhunter (original version of Red Dragon) - A troubled FBI agent tries to find a pattern in a serial killer’s choice of victims
The Mean Season - Local reporter’s girlfriend is kidnapped after he does a story on murderer, who calls to report he’ll kill again
Monster - True story of Aileen Wuornos, a hooker who killed men she picked up
Natural Born Killers - Young couple goes on a killing spree, starting with her abusive father, leaving one witness each time, and become folk heroes
The Night of the Hunter - Classic oldie about a serial killer who hides in plain sight, marrying a widow and trying to coerce her kids into telling him where their real dad hid the proceeds from a robbery
No Country for Old Men - soon to be released, getting good buzz
No Way to Treat a Lady - Sly killer taunts police, committing his murder is assorted disguises. Comedic.
Red Dragon (remake of Manhunter)
Se7en - Killer’s victims embody the seven deadly sins
Silence of the Lambs - The FBI needs the help of a brilliant psychopath to catch a killer, and he only responds to a vulnerable rookie
The Stepfather - A man marries widows with children, seeking the perfect family, and when they prove human, kills then and moves to the next one
The Talented Mr. Ripley - A young man sent to Europe to convince a rich playboy to come home kills him and assumes his life
Time After Time - H.G. Wells inadvertently looses Jack the Ripper on modern San Francisco
