My Inner European...

Hollywood has been obsessed with serial killers for over a decade now. Pretty much since Silence of the Lambs. It's been done to death (pardon the pun) and it's simple ground that has been trod very flat. I understand the need to make the villain intelligent, even a genius to make the film better and the killer thing adds the twinge of fear and the ultimate crime. The problem is the utter depravity depicted over and over and over. Is there a point? Half or more of these movies wouldn't have suffered in the least if the criminal was a serial art thief, bank robber or what have you. That said, actual serial killers are far less glamorous albiet usually intelligent. They are also severely disordered people and in many cases abjectly evil. The infamous BTK killer was one. He killed many many people (over 50?) during his "career" and suddenly vanished. Some investigators were convinced he had died. He hadn't. He simply stopped. How? Well, one expert believes it has to do with going to Church. In the article What If Rader Never Went To Church? the writer believes that the very behaviors that compelled him in one direction (murder) may well have resulted in him going exactly the opposite way (Church). I have no basis to determine the validity of such a claim but it is fascinating. Can a person who can commit such depravities on another human being find a kernel of remorse and use it as a building block to turn away from the darkness? Maybe so. I don't think it was a need for noteriety or fame that drove Rader to write the letters that got him caught. I think it was guilt. In the end, he knew he needed to be punished and he was too weak to turn himself in. Evil, in the end, is a coward.