I love American Psycho.
Not in a “haha funny meme” way. Not in a “look how edgy I am, i am sigma” way. I love it because it’s one of the smartest, most unsettling, and most brilliantly constructed films ever made.
And if you don’t get it, if you watched it and thought, “Eh, just another slasher film”, I have to tell you something. This movie is about you.
Yeap,
This movie holds up a mirror, and depending on who you are, you either see the joke or you are the joke.
Did Bateman actually kill all those people, or was it all in his head?
I don’t think he killed a single person. Every act of violence in this movie feels exaggerated, almost theatrical. The chainsaw scene? The ATM telling him to feed it a stray cat? The way a police car literally explodes when he shoots it? That’s not reality. That’s a man losing control of his own delulu.
And that’s why it is so terrifying.
Because if Bateman isn’t a killer, then what the hell is he? He’s just another guy in a suit. Another rich, powerful, self-absorbed man who dreams of control, power, and destruction but never actually gets to break free from the system.
Think about it: he desperately wants someone to notice him, to recognize his insanity, to call him out, to stop him. But nobody cares. He confesses to his lawyer, and what happens? Nothing. Either because he never actually did anything, or because in this world, nobody is paying enough attention to care.
This movie is like a test. What you see in it says more about you than it does about Bateman.
This film is a test. And how you react to it tells you exactly what kind of person you are.
It forces you to ask: