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Serial Killer: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:Dexter_Morgan_5399.jpg|link=Dexter|right|[[Slices, Dices, and Makes Julienne Fries|He slices! He dices]]!]]
{{quote|"''We all go a little mad sometimes.''"|'''Norman Bates''', ''[[Psycho (Film)|Psycho]]''}}
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* '''Cost Cutters''' are those who kill to save money, such as a person who murders employees to avoid paying them.
* '''Lethal Caretakers''' are nurses, carers, or other such who kill patients and carees for profit, e.g. to cash in on social security checks in their name. Usually women.
* '''Angels of Death''' are similar, but kill patients for feelings of power and control, or sometimes [[Well
* '''Munchausen By Proxy''' is a personality disorder where the perpetrator harms another for attention -- for example, murdering a relative for sympathy at the loss, or killing someone and then trying to "save" them to act the hero. Usually not killers, but serial abusers of relations or strangers, but have been known to turn lethal.
* '''Sexual Predators''' are killers who lure victims to their death with promises of sex or intimacy, or simply chatting the victim up. May drug their victims to make it easier. Usually Lust killers, but other motives are suspected in certain cases.
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Note that the Real Life section below is only a very small sampling of well-known serial murderers. Also, many potential Serial Killers get caught quickly because they use an MO, and also because a lot of them are so sick and demented that they ''want'' to get caught -- yes, they see it as some kind of game.
{{examples
== Anime & Manga ==
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** That said, the images of his backstory are rather unnerving, and the only reason he stops killing is because of his involvement with the various conspiracies.
*** In the first anime, he was encountered earlier as a [[Villainous Crossdresser]]. When we see him again as #66, he keeps on killing right up until he is killed by Scar.
** Scar is of a different (and often overlooked) variety. He only targets state alchemists with the motivation of revenge for the massacre of his people. This makes him a "mission-oriented" serial killer. He becomes more of a sympathetic [[Anti
** Also Zolf J. Kimbley, who is a pretty smart psycho who manages to do most of his killing on government assignments and so avoids having to hide. He did eventually kill his commanding officer when they tried to take away his Philosopher's Stone after the war, and got thrown in jail until the time of the series.
** This series also gives us The Slicer, who (like Barry) is [[Animated Armor]], created to guard Lab 5 following the execution.
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** [[It Got Worse|Also]], he does not appear to get any sort of benefit from killing; he shows no signs of getting a thrill or sexual pleasure from his acts, nor does he seem to get any kicks from domination, and the killings are usually carried out as pragmatically as possible (no wasting time through torture, etc.), which suggests that his use of other people to kill might be simple expedience rather than enjoying his ability to manipulate. In addition, with many of his victims, there is no financial gain or any real progress towards whatever plan he may have at the time, making their deaths totally pointless. The lack of any recognisable motive is [[Your Mileage May Vary|arguably]] the main reason why he's widely considered [[Nightmare Fuel]] incarnate, as well as the poster-boy for the [[Complete Monster]] page.
* [[Naoki Urasawa]], the creator of ''Monster'', has another manga called ''[[Pluto]]'', in which he manages to turn the titular character, a big, goofy-looking green cartoon robot with horns from the classic ''[[Astro Boy]]'' series, into a genuinely terrifying serial killer figure.
* Kira Yoshikage, the [[Big Bad]] of the fourth part of ''[[Jo
* In the anime version of the [[Locked Room Mystery]] in ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'', Haruhi saw "a shadow" in the distance during the storm, believing it to be the murderer. Since this is [[Reality Warper|Haruhi]], Kyon figures that there might be a psychopathic serial killer lurking around the island, simply because Haruhi wanted to have one. It is left open, but the chances of this really happening are more or less low.
* With all the seemingly random killings in ''[[All There in the Manual|StrikerS Sound Stage X]]'' of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', this was what the investigators originally thought the Mariage Case was about. However, it soon became clear that Mariage wasn't a serial killer but a group of [[Night of the Living Mooks|undead]] [[Super Soldier|super soldiers]] seeking the whereabouts of their [[Warrior Prince|king]] so they can begin a new war, all orchestrated by someone else as part of a terrorist scheme.
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{{quote| '''Shadow:''' Eleven rapes, nineteen murders. And that's just what they caught me for.}}
** Scourge the Hedgehog is also a Serial Killer-Rapist, but with a much more Hedonistic motive.
* [[Cupcakes]] casts [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|Pinkie Pie]] as one.
* The [[Happy Tree Friends]] fanfiction "The Reaper" has one.
* In New Dawn, Nebiros is a Revenge Killer, taking very petty vengeance on those who he thinks were born into better circumstances than him. He also fits the Supernatural mold, due to the whole "he's a demon" thing.
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* Mitch Leary from ''In the Line of Fire''. John goddamn Malkovich.
* In ''Hunting Humans'', the main character is a serial killer -- being stalked by another serial killer.
* Richard from ''[[Dead Mans Shoes]]'', though [[Anti
* Rare female example: Erica Bain from ''[[The Brave One]]''. Doubles as a [[Vigilante Man|Vigilante Woman]].
* Jigsaw of the ''[[Saw]]'' movies arguably fits here, though he is fairly sporting -- he gives his victims a (very slim) chance to escape, and apparently ''wants'' them to escape, on the hope that their life will be improved by the experience.
** As for his apprentice {{spoiler|Amanda, well... Not so much}}.
* ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Film)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'', who murdered his customers and sent them down the chute, where his partner Mrs. Lovett baked them into pies. His initial motive is revenge for what happened to him and his wife at the hands of the corrupt Judge Turpin, and his first killing is a man who recognized him from his days as Benjamin Barker and tried to blackmail him, but after "Epiphany", he starts committing the murders that would make him infamous.
* ''[[The Stepfather]]'' series of films involves an unnamed serial killer (he only ever uses aliases) obsessed with finding the perfect family to become a part of. Things are all smiles and sunshine for a while, but if the family doesn't reach expectations and becomes too hard to handle, he moves on to another, murdering his current one (and anyone else in the way) in a vicious cycle, being pretty much incapable of believing that there is no such thing as "the perfect family". One of the most memorable scenes in the original is of the killer losing his composure in the basement, thrashing around and muttering nearly incomprehensibly, unknowingly in front of his stepdaughter. Also, the "Family Killer", as he's called in the third film [[Very Loosely Based
* Before becoming a [[Your Worst Nightmare|dream-stalking ghost]] [[Deal With the Devil|via demons]], Freddy Krueger of ''[[A Nightmare On Elm Street]]'' fame was a serial killer by the name of the "Springwood Slasher", who would prey on young children (and, if an old newspaper in the fifth film is any indication, he'd do more than just butcher them). The sixth film reveals that he had an entire secret room in his house filled with trophies of his kills ([[Torture Cellar|and various implements of torture]]), and the opening of ''Freddy vs. Jason'' also at one point had him flipping through a scrapbook of his victims ''while chuckling to himself''.
* Henry, the [[Villain Protagonist]] of ''[[Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer]]'', is a brutal murderer who changes his M.O. for each kill, so the police don't know what he's up to. He eventually [[Karma Houdini|gets away with]] killing {{spoiler|literally every other major character in the film, including his accomplice and his girlfriend}}. He's also so cold and unfeeling that he makes Dexter look like a warm, caring individual.
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* ''[[Grindhouse]]'''s Stuntman Mike: [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|He's a stuntman]]. Who horribly butchers women. With his car. Yeah. Of course, Tracy Thoms, [[Zoe Bell]], and [[Rosario Dawson]] turn the tables on the redneck lunatic bastard.
* The ''[[Scream (Film)|Scream]]'' series each featured a Serial Killer [[Legacy Character|in costume]] who hunted down all the friends and family of Sidney Prescott (or the cast of the [[Film Within a Film]] in [[Black Sheep|the third one]]). The various people who have donned the Ghostface mask are: {{spoiler|Billy Loomis and Stu Macher in ''Scream'', Mrs. Loomis and Mickey in ''Scream 2'', Roman Bridger in ''Scream 3'', and Jill Roberts and Charlie Walker in ''Scream 4''}}.
* ''[[Friday the
* ''[[Halloween (Film)|Halloween]]'''s Michael Myers: Killing just ''one'' sister just wasn't enough for him.
* Scorpio, in ''[[Dirty Harry (Film)|Dirty Harry]]''. Scorpio was based on the real life Zodiac Killer who was active in [[San Francisco]] in the late 1960's, but never caught.
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* In the ''[[Fate Zero]]'' novel, the historical hero Gilles de Rais (summoned to the war as Caster) is a visionary serial killer (with aspects of a thrill killer) who kills to spite God for abandoning Jeanne d'Arc. [[Would Hurt a Child|He favours children as his targets]]. His master, Ryuunosuke, is a sadistic thrill killer who ended up summoning Caster out of curiosity and gleefully follows Caster because he considers him an artist.
* ''Cat of Many Tails'' by [[Ellery Queen]] has Ellery being hired as a special investigator to assist the NYPD to catch a serial killer who has been terroising New York. Initially, the only pattern Ellery can find in the killer's targets, who vary in sex, race, and marital status, is that each victim is younger than the one before.
* Two stories in [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[Night Shift]]'' features a serial killer: "Springheel Jack" in ''Strawberry Spring'' and the hammer murderer in ''The Man who Loved Flowers''. {{spoiler|In both, the protagonist is the killer; in the former it's a case of [[The Killer in Me]], in the latter an extreme example of [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick]].}}
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== Tabletop Games ==
* The ''[[New World of Darkness]]'' has slashers, humans who find themselves compelled to kill. Strangely enough, [[Villain Protagonist|they're playable]], and you can opt for a game in which the people the slashers kill [[Complete Monster|often]] [[Moral Event Horizon|deserve]] [[Laser
** Also notable as the rules presented allow you to make pretty much every character seen on this page:
*** Avenger/Legend: Paul Kersey from ''[[Death Wish (Film)|Death Wish]]'' starts killing criminal punks, but eventually becomes so fed up with "the filth on the streets" that he becomes ''[[Candyman (Film)|Candyman]]'', haunting the urban projects.
*** Brute/Mask: Mickey from ''[[Natural Born Killers]]'' gets off on killing so much that he trades all that makes him human -- language, literacy, the ability to be around others -- to become [[Friday the
*** Charmer/Psycho: Reverend Powell from ''[[The Night of the Hunter (Film)|The Night of the Hunter]]'' gets by on the thin veneer of humanity for so long that it eventually turns inside out and he becomes the freak you can't help but stare at, not unlike [[The Joker]].
*** Freak/Mutant: The families from ''[[The Hills Have Eyes (Film)|The Hills Have Eyes]]'' take to the caves and degrade until they become [[The Descent (Film)|the Crawlers]].
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== Real Life ==
* Many a fictional serial killer is [[Very Loosely Based
** Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter from ''Silence of Lambs'' are, respectively, loosely based on Gein and Fish.
*** Mama's boy Norman Bates is also based on Gein.
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais Gilles de Rais] was a French nobleman, war hero, compatriot of Joan Of Arc and murdered at least 80 children between 1432 and 1440, the majority of whom were also raped or sexually abused. Much like Bathory, a few people have tried claiming that he was framed by the church to acquire his lans but that's extremely unlikely since firstly, the church didn't have a hope of acquiring his lands (which ended up going to the Duke of Brittany); secondly, his confederates gave very detailed testimony and thirdly, around forty bodies were discovered. Margaret Murray has also tried claiming that he was a Dianic pagan who was subject to religious persecution but the evidence for this is virtually nil.
* Australia had [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Cooke Eric Cooke], an unusual serial killer who changed his M.O. Two innocent men were also charged with crimes Cooke committed, but have since been exonerated.
* "BTK" (Bind, Torture, Kill): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader Dennis Rader], who murdered 10 people in the Sedgwick county area of Wichita, Kansas from 1977-1989 while sending taunting letters and poems to the police, and was caught approximately a decade and a half after his last victim, because after such a long time he got bored and [[What an Idiot!|started sending letters to the police again, announcing that he was plotting his next murder.]] Lots of televison shows have since had a take on him, though most commonly the reason for their killer's lengthy absence is that he was seriously injured in some way and had to temporarily stop.<ref> The reason ''Dennis Rader'' stopped was simply that he got a job with the local Compliance Department, meaning he could stalk, bully and harass people with a veneer of legality, which he did with gleeful abandon, especially women, on at least one occassion taking one womans dog and having it put down and lying about it being a dangerous animal. In other words it was only because now he could live out his sadistic fantasies at greatly reduced risk, which makes him a much bigger bastard than any of his adaptations. And unlike them, when caught, he not only confessed to the killings, he ''bragged'' about them.</ref>
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Lee_Lucas Henry Lee Lucas] is an interesting case. While he confessed to the murder of nearly 600 people (including people who turned out to ''still be alive''), he often would recant his confessions, only to confess to ''other'' murders. He often became the "go-to" guy by police departments who wanted to clear their unsolved murder files. Since he was already sentenced to death, he relished in the attention that the confessions brought him. When he died in prison in 2001, forensics were only able to confirm 3 of his confessions, which technically did make him a serial killer. His supposed exploits inspired the brilliant ''[[Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer|HENRY: Portrait of a Serial Killer]]''.
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ridgway Gary Ridgway], better known as the Green River Killer, is one of the most prolific serial killers of the 20th century. He was convicted for the murder of 48 women over the course of three decades. However it is believed that he killed up to 90 women.
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[[Category:Plots]]
[[Category:Serial Killer]]
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