The serial killer thriller genre has largely migrated to television in recent years, which leaves movies like Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs fairly infrequent nowadays. That’s a shame, because movies that chronicle the cat-and-mouse wrestling match between a vicious killer and a person determined to bring them to justice are often some of the most suspenseful and intriguing films ever made.

The serial killer thriller emerged with films like Arsenic and Old Lace in 1944 and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in 1960 before drawing on true crime realism in the likes of 10 Rillington Place and Henry: Portrait of Serial Killer. In the 1980s, serial killer thrillers primarily came in the form of slasher films, which overshadowed the more explicit realism of serial killers for a time.

The 1990s was a turning point for the serial killer subgenre as Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs won the ‘Big Five’ at the Academy Awards – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Just five years later, David Fincher delivered another classic of the genre with Se7en, a movie whose ending remains one of the most jaw-dropping in cinema history.

While the early 2000s saw the likes of Monster and Zodiac hit theaters, the once prolific run of serial killer thrillers decidedly slowed down in recent years and is now primarily restricted to mediocre fare like this year’s Psycho Killer. But, with the recent release of Netflix’s The Whisper Man, now is the perfect time to look at a number of serial killer thrillers that deserve more attention than they receive.

The Clovehitch Killer

Marking the directorial debut of Duncan Skiles, The Clovehitch Killer follows 16-year-old Tyler Burnside (Charlie Plummer), who comes to expect his father (Dylan McDermott) may be the infamous serial killer Clovehitch Killer.

Blending coming-of-age drama and serial killer mystery, Skiles draws inspiration from the story of real life serial killer Dennis Rader (a.k.a. The BTK Killer) to craft a film that brilliantly juxtaposes the sterility of American suburban life with the horrors that lurk behind closed doors. The film employs slow pacing that methodically ramps up the tension as the mystery unfolds. An intelligently constructed third act keeps audience members on their toes and caps off a serial killer that intrigues and unsettles in equal measure.

Mr. Brooks

Mr. Brooks stars Kevin Costner as the titular character, a respected businessman, father, and husband who has a secret life as a serial killer. Consulted his imaginary alter-ego Marshall (William Hurt), Mr. Brooks faces exposure as a detective (Demi Moore) hunts him down and a photographer (Dane Cook) witnesses one of his crimes and blackmails him.

Costner has arguably never been more unnerving than he is in Mr. Brooks, a film that plays very similarly to a season of Dexter. The twists and turns of the narrative may be a bit ridiculous at times, but it maximizes the tension inherent to a story about a man desperate to keep his darker side hidden from others.

Summer of 84

Another blend of serial killer thriller and coming-of-age drama makes the list. Summer of 84 follows a group of teens in suburban U.S.A., who begin to suspect that their neighborhood police officer is secretly a serial killer.

Narratively, Summer of 84 sounds rather similar to The Clovehitch Killer, but the two films could not be more different. Whereas the latter takes a more moody and contemplative approach to the material, Summer of 84 is more playful, in large part due to its quirky adolescent protagonists and its nostalgic 1980s setting. This playfulness, however, belies the true nature of the movie as it converges on a truly chilling finale viewers won’t forget.

I Saw the Devil

I Saw the Devil is a South Korean thriller that follows a national intelligence service agent (Lee Byung-hun), who seeks revenge against the serial killer (Choi Min-sik) responsible for his fiancee’s murder.

Director Kim Jee-woon smashes together serial killer drama, revenge thriller, and action movie for one of the most chaotic, violent, and emotional entries on this list. Perhaps too grisly and offensive to some, audience members willing to brace for the ride will appreciate the film’s pitch black tone and technical accomplishments.

Deep Red

Deep Red is a classic giallo film from iconic Italian filmmaker Dario Argento. The film follows a pianist (David Hemmings), who investigates a series of murders performed by a mysterious black-gloved figure.

Widely regarded as one of the giallo genre’s definitive entries, Deep Red has everything one could possibly want from a serial killer thriller. At its heart, Argento’s film is a compelling whodunnit, one that has the audience guessing until the very end. Argento masterminds a technically exquisite film, filled to the brim with inventive camerawork, distinctive visual compositions, and clever use of first-person. A perfect entry point to both Argento’s illustrious filmography and the giallo genre more broadly, Deep Red more than deserves its place at the apex of serial killer thrillers, yet seldom is mentioned in the same breath as Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs.

Creep

Arguably the strangest, funniest, and most compelling serial killer on this list comes in the form of Mark Duplass’ oddball in Creep. The 2014 found horror movie directed by Patrick Brice follows a videographer assigned to record a man named Josef (Duplass) for the day, who claims to have an inoperable brain tumor and wishes to leave behind a video diary for his unborn child.

Decidedly slower paced than every other entry on this list, Creep may not bolster the flashy spectacle of kills and thrills one comes to serial killer thrillers for, but it rewards the audience’s patience immensely by the time the credits roll. Unique doesn’t begin to describe a movie embedded with such understated malevolence and featuring a career-making performance from Duplass, who has since gone on to play the character in a sequel film and a television series.

Road Games

Released in 1981, Road Games follows a truck driver (Stacy Keach) and a hitchhiker (Jamie Lee Curtis) who track down a serial killer slaughtering women and dumping their bodies on a desert highway.

An often overlooked entry from Curtis’ early days, Road Games excels with its slow-burning suspense and transposition of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window from an apartment complex in Greenwich Village to the desolate highways of the Australian outback. Imbued with Hitchcockian suspense and tension, the film features a fun relationship between Keach and Curtis’ characters that nicely offsets the paranoia of a story that perfectly uses the outback as the backdrop for a serial killer thriller.

Faces of Death

Released earlier this year, Faces of Death is a clever reimagining of the controversial 1978 film of the same name. From How to Blow Up a Pipeline filmmakers Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei, the film stars Euphoria’s Barbie Ferreira as Margot, a video platform moderator tasked with filtering out inappropriate content on a social media app. When Margot comes across a series of videos that appear to be re-creating the murders from the original Faces of Death film, she becomes determined to discern the authenticity of the videos.

Faces of Death may not be the boundary-pushing work of cinema that the original film, which was famously promoted as being ‘Banned in 48 Countries,’ was, but it nonetheless has all the trappings of a solid serial killer thriller. Stranger Things’ Dacre Montgomery is as deeply unsettling as he is strangely funny as a pathetic serial killer obsessed with social media clout, an attribute that the film uses to comment on society’s desensitization to violence and moral degradation.

Release Date

September 22, 1995

Runtime

127 minutes

Writers

Andrew Kevin Walker

Producers

Arnold Kopelson, Phyllis Carlyle