Reinette LeJeune
A new survey by internet and phone service provider, GetWindstream, was released recently chronicling a study of the most searched horror movie villains by state. The study revealed that American Psycho, but more specifically Patrick Batemen, was the most searched for villain in the state of Pennsylvania, and the country at large. According to GetWindstream’s methodology page, the list of the 20 most popular horror movie villains was created based on data from Ranker and Screenrant, taking each villains search volume from Semrush and plugging the top 10 searches into Google Trends in order to determine which was googled by each state over the last 12 months.
American Psycho is a 2000 horror film directed by Mary Harron and based on the 1991 novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis. It stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, a New York City investment banker who leads a double life as a serial killer. The movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2000, and was theatrically released in the United States on April 14, 2000. It has since developed a cult following and a strong presence in contemporary meme culture.
A direct-to-video sequel, American Psycho 2, was released in 2002, although it has little relation to the original. Directed by Morgan J. Freeman, it starred Mila Kunis as Rachel, a criminology student who proceeds to kill off classmates one by one in order to secure a prestigious teaching assistant position that would give her an advantage towards joining the FBI training program. The screenplay for the film, entitled The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die, originally had no association with American Psycho, but after production began, the script was altered to connect the film with the original through the early plot of Batemen’s murder by Rachel as a young girl. The film was released direct-to-video on June 18, 2002, to negative reviews from critics, earning a 0 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. It was denounced by Bret Easton Ellis, the author of the original novel, and Kunis later expressed regret for the film.
