Celluloid Serial Killers

Paul B. Kidd's Top 15 Serial Killer Movies Continued...

6. 10 Rillington Place (1971) C-111m

Movie Poster: 10 Rillington Place

Be prepared to have the daylights shocked out of you in this true life classic as necrophiliac serial killer, London's John Christie, arguably the most heinous fiend that ever lived, murders his way to the gallows. Over a thirteen-year period until his capture in 1953, John Reginald Halliday Christie murdered seven women including his wife and the baby daughter of one of his victims. Christie gassed the women, strangled them and then raped their corpses.

The Christie Murders case is one of the most famous in the world, not for the murders themselves but for the fact that Timothy Evans, the dim-witted lorry driver husband of a Christie victim, Beryl Evans, and the father of the murdered baby Geraldine, was incorrectly hanged for their murders while the real killer Christie went free.

Richard Attenborough's performance as Christie is mesmerising as is John Hurt's portrayal of the intellectually retarded Evans. Who will ever forget the spine chilling scene in court with Evans pointing to Christie, the chief witness against him, and saying; "It was Christie what done it, Christie done it", after the judge sentenced him (Evans) to death by hanging.

The setting for 10 Rillington Place is exactly where it happened, the depressing squalor of London's Notting Hill just after the war, then possibly the worst bit of residential real estate on the planet.

Believe me, this is no family comedy. This is factual horror at it ugliest and a truly brilliant piece of cinema.

7. Hannibal (2001) C-121m

The long-awaited sequel to The Silence of The Lambs isn't in the same class as the original, but only the world's greatest optimist could possibly have hoped it would be, given that originals Jody Foster and director Jonathon Demme vetoed the project. But there are lots of other serial killer treats to make up for it.

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Anthony Hopkins is yet again brilliant in the role that he seems to have been born for, that of the evil Hannibal Lecter; scholar, teacher, intellectual and bon vivant of exquisite taste, especially his penchant for certain cuts of meat.

And we get to meet possibly the most grotesque screen villain of them all; billionaire pedophile, disgruntled out-patient and long-time Lecter nemesis, Mason Verger, who wants to have a word with him about the time the good doctor filled him full of drugs and encouraged him to shave his own face off with slivers of broken mirror. As a result Mason looks like Cyclops who's had all of the skin from his ass grafted onto his face by a surgeon who's on a bad acid trip. Actor Gary Altman passed up a mention in the credits claiming that no one would have known it was him anyway.

While in lots of folk's eyes only Jody Foster will ever be Clarice Starling, Julianne Moore makes a fist of it and is convincing as the boots-and-all FBI agent also in pursuit of the dreaded Lecter in an attempt to regain her job with the FBI after she is discredited by Verger cohort FBI agent Paul Krendler played by Ray Liotta.

Set in America and France Hannibal bowls along at a ripper pace and while it doesn't stick too closely to the book, especially the ending, it is still an excellent film for the genre. With more twists and turns than a bucket of blood worms, viewers shouldn't be dissatisfied with Hannibal if they can only stop themselves from comparing it with the original, which would have to be one of the hardest acts in the history of the movies to follow.