So as I gather my thoughts, with my portfolio schedule in hand, I keep wondering what to do... what to do. Thoughts and ideas race through my head as I rack my brain trying to fit my team and my's idea into a genre... it's difficult labeling things, especially when they're a mixture of three wildly different personalities and perspectives. After leveling myself and slowing down my thought process, I stop jumping around different ideas and processes and stick to one: research different genres. This is exactly what I'll be doing today, except I already did the research with my team and we decided to label our project as a psychological horror/thriller. So, in that case, I'll be analyzing different film openings from this genre to know what I'm really getting myself into. You know, immerse myself into the world of psychological thrillers and nerve-wracking movies. I'll only be doing three today, but more analyses will come, don't worry. When the idea of a psychological thriller came into my brain, I admit: I was a lost cause; but then I started to remember all of the different pieces of media I've ever watched, and, well, psychological thriller made up a lot of them.
So, I got thinking and decided I'll start with a bang: American Psycho (2000). American Psycho is a psychological horror that satirizes the concepts of consumer culture, toxic masculinity, and the overall emptiness that materialism mixed with narcissism carries. The film tells the story of a New York investment banker, Patrick Bateman in the 1980's, who lives a double life: one side as an investment banker, the other as a psychopathic "serial killer" for lack of a better term.
At it's very core... American Psyscho critiques the raw and soulless materialism harbored within the crevices of the postmodern setting of 1980's corporate America. When I was watching the film adaptation, (for context, I have already read the book) the director, Mary Harron, perfectly visualized Bateman and his feverish obsessions with appearances and his character embodies the very concept of superficiality–the frequent mentions and focuses on designer suits, business cards, restaurant reservations, objects, you name it, only highlight how Bateman's character only highlights how his obsession with superficial things allows him to "blend into" society, even while he commits heinous and inhumane acts, adding a tang of irony to the film, only further emphasizing the satiric nature of the film.
There is a specific scene that always comes to my mind that, in my opinion, truly embody the current state of the forever-evolving media sphere, and that is: the business card scene. This scene depicts Bateman and his work colleagues intensely comparing the different aesthetics of their business cards ––something that is straight-up trivial–– and to add the cherry on top, all the cards look nearly identical. However, this scene only serves as a microcosm for American Psycho's narrative world ––that can be applied to our world, as well–– and only unveils its true nature: superficial, emotionally null, hyper-competitive, and hyperreal, if you will.
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