Psychoopaths In Film

In the American society, things are more often than not exaggerated to make things more interesting; leave us ignorant with fantasy of crime, horror, romance, action, and adventure. Psychopaths and sociopaths are often confused with each other, and people believe that the two aren’t any different. In the entertainment business, psychopaths and sociopaths are made out to seem ruthless, violent murderers, rapists and more. While they can be all of these things, the media and entertainment business makes things seem different than they really are. According to definition, a sociopath is a person who lacks empathy, but a psychopath is one that has a complete lack of it.

Introduction I. Look around this school and think about exactly how many students are here daily. How would you feel if I told you that one out of every twenty five people are sociopaths(Pratt 2006).The fact of the matter is that not everyone who is a sociopath is a serial killer but oddly enough it has been proven that all serial killers are sociopaths. II. I have chosen serial killers that I found intriguing and that I thought not many people would know a lot about.

Myles Hypse February 3rd, 2017 English 1B 3:30-4:40pm Two Psychopaths Both of these stories give the reader a good look into the eyes of two psychopaths, who both refuse to take no for an answer. One of them, Arnold Friend although at first appearing friendly, is nothing more than a malicious predator, similar in kind to The Misfit, who greets his victims in a much more sinister way. The two characters, when stood side by side, almost seemed as they become one, yet are polar opposites. When one compares the character Arnold Friend to that of The Misfit, more similarities come forward than differences.

Serial killers have different characteristics describing their way of murder. A power junkie, manipulator, egotistical bragger, superficial charmer, and an average joe are characteristics of a serial killer. A power junkie wants to take control over their victims (Woollaston 1). The victims are easily hypnotized by their killer and can not understand what they might be doing. Another serial killer is the manipulator who makes their victims do what they want them to do (Wollaston 2).

Evidently, there are many things wrong with someone if they are able to commit murder. A killer can range from a seemingly normal person, to an obviously deranged looking psychopath. Although, it does not matter what is on the outside, but more what is happening internally. Killers usually have a childhood trauma in their lives, are depressed, and are also psychotic. There has always been an argument about why killers decide to kill.

Depending on who you talk to, Adnan Syed could be referred to as a psychopath. Although Adnan wanted to share his innocence, his defender told him not to otherwise he would make matters worse for himself. During the case, Adnan’s defence attorney asked for the jury to consider it a crime of passion, rather than intent to kill. However, the judge disagreed and said that Hae’s murder was planned and that Adnan used intellect and charisma to manipulate Hae and took her to her

Psychopathy is measured with a tool called PCL-R which has 4 dimensions: affective, antisocial, lifestyle and interpersonal (Mulcahy M., Cutinelli P., Warner J. and Woodruff T. (April 01, 2011). As a result you can see that Gary Ridgway is a serial killer and is a psychopath to a large extent because his psychopathy is evident in all areas of the PCL-R.

In this paper I will be applying the psychological theories to serial killer Ed Gein. Ed Gein was a prolific serial killer in the 1950’s. He murdered and robbed graves for body parts to make furniture and clothing. He was apprehended in 1957, where he stood trial and was institutionalized. Edward Theodore “Ed” Gein was born August 27th, 1906 to George and Augusta Gein.

Is it the nature of their lives and their surroundings? Is it their family genes and the way they grew up with their family? Many serial killers are affected differently. They aren’t all driven by the same thing though. There is something in each serial killer that makes them different.

Humans tend are entertained by the most iniquitous things. Stephen King makes many significant points, one point being “the horror film has become the modern version of the public lynching” (paragraph 6). This is agreeable because all humans have some type of psychological problem, an evil and a good side, emotions that need satisfaction, and the similarities between horror films and public lynching. People may not recognize these things, but it does exist in everyday life. Stephen King’s article helps point these things out to readers.

A psychopath is classified as someone who shows no remorse and has no conscience, while a sociopath has some sort of conscience and sometimes shows some guilt or remorse ("What's the Difference Between a Sociopath and a Psychopath"). Psychopaths do not feel sorry for other people (“What’s the Difference Between a Sociopath and a Psychopath”) and Kuklinski certainly did not feel sorry for any of his victims (“Married to The Iceman”). During an interview with HBO, Kuklinski stated that he probably could have killed his father and wouldn’t have felt bad about it ("Richard Kuklinski The Iceman Mafia Hitman HBO Interview 2001 (Part 1)"). Richard Kuklinski also showed sociopathic traits. He only showed remorse when talking about his wife and kids ("Richard Kuklinski 'The Iceman' Part 12 of 12").

Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcocks powerful and complex psychological thriller, horror film “Psycho” (1960) was classes as the first sub genre of horror, the slasher. The film ushered in the era of slashes with graphic content of blood-letting and shocking killings of the time. Although this was Hitchcock’s first horror film, he was labelled as a horror film director ever since. The film contains disturbing themes of corruptibility, confused identities, voyeurism, human vulnerabilities and victimisation. These themes symbolise the effects of money, oedipal murder and the dark histories.

( Armitage, page 7). In simpler terms, Moriwaki’s has a great lack of emotions and has been labeled a “psychopath”. A psychopath is defined as a person that suffers from a chronic medical disorder and has a violent or abnormal behavior. Psychopathic traits are often associated with criminal behavior. With this in mind, Moriwaki’s lack of emotions and psychopathic personality has lead to the murder of Kurose.

) This means that they aren 't able to feel much empathy causing them to commit such violent crimes (Keysers, 2013). Conclusion: Review: Since we established that psychopath have certain characteristic or traits such as speech pattern, abnormal sexual behavior and lack of emotional control. You will now be able to identify a psychopath End-Statement

(Serial Killers: Nature vs. Nurture, How Serial Killers are Born). The second part of this statement is accurate, they are really good at hiding their emotions. This allows them to appear among the population as normal. However, they are not doing this because they want to but because they have to. All they had to endure was tough so they must put up a shell or a front to keep people from seeing the harsh reality of what they have to go