Jack the Ripper’s apocryphal quote of giving birth to the 20th Century rings true in more ways than one. The Whitechapel murders coincided with the mass production and circulation of newspapers. The catchy name, letters supposedly written by the killer, grisly details, wild speculation and conspiracies all contributed to Jack the Ripper becoming a worldwide sensation.
In the West, the serial killer is widely represented in popular culture. In books everyone from Rennie Airth’s John Madden to James Patterson’s Alex Cross and Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta are constantly tracking and battling demented killers. Even the queen of cosy crime, Agatha Christie had a serial killer in her And Then There were None .
In India, as Karthika V.K., Publisher & Chief Editor HarperCollins India says, “We haven’t had too much writing on serial killers. The co-relation between injustice/early psychological trauma and later obsessive killing isn’t anywhere as integral as it is to crime writing in the West.”
However, in the last couple of months there have been books and movies dealing with serial killers. There is Nawazuddin Siddiqui wreaking havoc as Raman Raghav on screen. In print there is Bhaskar Chattopadhyay’s Patang about a ruthless killer during the monsoon in Mumbai and Juggi Bhasin’s killer stalking wannabe stars in Bollywood Deception .
“I am inclined to say that it is partly a function of what readers and audiences demand and partly coincidental,” Bhaskar says. “I don’t think that we suddenly wake up with a deeper understanding of the human mind one fine day.” Anita Nair, whose Cut Like Wound featured a cross dressing serial killer says: “I guess to some extent writers of crime fiction see the enormous potential in using a serial killer as a theme. Our psyches have always been fractured but it is a coincidence that there are novels and a film on the subject back to back. A coincidence born probably out of the need to create fiction/film, which is entertaining, voyeuristic and adrenaline enhancing.”
Creation of their timesJuggi, who introduced the crime fighting duo of Kas and Kassata to catch a depraved killer says, “Serial killers are a creation of their times. In an industrialized or quasi-industrialized society, the village level or small town comfort has been stripped away. The village could have the idiot or bully or even tyrant but rarely does one come across a village serial killer.”
Bhaskar begs to differ. “Serial killers can and have been part of any country’s crime history. They can come from any ethnicity, and setting - rural or urban, can be a man or a woman, poor or affluent - in other words, anyone can turn into a serial killer, given a certain set of circumstances.”
“I don’t think serial killers are an American or just a western urban phenomenon,” agrees Anita. “I am quite sure they exist in other parts of the world. In fact, I have been reading crime fiction from various parts of the world and be it Turkey or the Philippines, serial killers somehow seem to spring up.”
A novel about a serial killer is not a whodunit in the strict sense of the word. The tension is in the chase. “The chase is an integral part of a novel about serial killers,” comments Bhaskar. “And it is the hunt that attracts readers. And this is true not just about serial killers, but any form of hunting. We can’t understand Ramanna if we don’t know Raghav well enough.”
“The chase is the key,” Juggi concurs. “In many of the cases the fine lines between the hunter and the hunted start blurring. It would not be entirely shocking if the hunter (or the law enforcer) acquires characteristics of the serial killer. Imagine a law enforcer chasing the killer across states, time zones, for years living out of cheap hotels, eating bad food, thinking and obsessing only about his target. Would such an individual not change into something worse?”
Glorified by the media?While we voraciously consume tales of serial killers fed to us by the breathless media, is the media guilty of glamorising these cold blooded killers? “The media makes something sordid seem special,” says Anita.
“Sometimes it does, but that is more like a trope,” says Bhaskar. “I can visualize a beautiful, fictional story of how the media played a crucial (almost make-or-break) role in nabbing a serial killer.”
Juggi is kinder when he says, “It is in the nature of human beings to see, watch, read and talk about evil without coming too close to it or be a part of it. The media is no different from the rest of us. They are also fascinated by the unordinary and the bizarre.”
From Psycho to Silence of the Lambs and of course Raman Raghav 2.0 , movies featuring serial killers have done very well. “What we can’t let our base instincts do in real life, we want the character do on screen,” says Bhaskar. “In certain cases, for instance in my favourite serial killer film ever, David Fincher’s Zodiac , you actually root for the cops, you feel for them, and for the amount of hard work they have done, but even the fact that they have to work so hard to catch the killer makes you respect him.”
Anita says, “Serial killers have a great screen potential for there is the surprise element as well as a chase on two levels — the serial killer going after the victim and the law going after the serial killer.”
Juggi on the other hand feels while some movies have worked, others have disappointed. “The worldwide success of Silence of the Lambs was well deserved. It showed an extraordinary relationship between the hunter and the hunted. I liked From Hell . Johnny Depp, the detective chasing Jack the Ripper over a period of time transforms and ultimately end up as a victim of his own extraordinary investigation.”
Whether the chase, the thrill or the schadenfreude these adrenalin-fuelled tales of crime are here to stay.
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Serial killers on film present an irresistible combination of thrills and chills. Picking out five of the best, even after leaving out the slasher sub-genre, was a tough call.
Psycho (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock’s film gave a whole new meaning to “wouldn’t even hurt a fly.”
Anthony Perkins as the mild-mannered Norman Bates, Janet Leigh’s sudden and horrific exit, the drain-to-eye dissolve and the surprise ending came together to create the perfect shocker.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Based on Thomas Harris novel of the same name, TheSilence of the Lambs by winning the big five at the Oscars (picture, director, actor, actress and adapted screenplay) was a game changer in the genre. The relationship between rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) and Anthony Hopkins as the cannibalistic Hannibal Lecter was as fascinating as the hunt for the serial killer, Buffalo Bill.
Basic Instinct (1992)
Is Catherine Tramell a serial killer? Are you going to arrest me for calling her one? Directed by Paul Verhoeven, Basic Instinct was in the news for its graphic content (remember the interrogation scene), the smoking and depiction of homosexual relationships. The film follows coke-addicted cop Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) as he tracks the killer of a rockstar. The chief suspect is the enigmatic writer Tramell (Sharon Stone).
The Cell (2000)
Critics felt the film was similar to The Silence of the Lambs and favoured style over content — what style though! Tarsem Singh made his debut with this film where Jennifer Lopez plays a psychologist entering a serial killer’s mind to find his last victim.
Khamosh (1985)
Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s whodunit is set in beautiful Pahalgam in Kashmir. As a film crew are shooting, life imitates art and cast and crew are killed. Is it jealousy, suicide, murder for gain or is there an unhinged killer on the loose? The film starring Soni Razdan, Naseeruddin Shah, Amol Palekar and Shabana Azmi was a perfect little gem.
