Patrick Bateman is a Wall Street yuppie, obsessed with success, status and style, with a stunning fiancée. He is also a psychotic killer who rapes, murders and dismembers both strangers and acquaintances without provocation or purpose.

"I killed him with an axe to the face. His body is dissolving in a bathtub in Hells kitchen."                - Patrick Bateman

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         It's hard to fully explain how amazing and downright brilliant American Psycho is. This is an example of what it truly means to "hit one out of the ballpark."
         American Psycho isn't your typical "psychotic killer, blood, guts and gore" film... not by a long shot. It's a psychological whirlwind of demented escapades into the mind of someone who is truly psychotic. A film which keeps you constantly second-guessing your original suspicions of what exactly is going on and then blind-sides you with an ending so spectacular it will do one of two things:

         1. Force you to watch it again 5 minutes after completing it. Perhaps again after the second run, for good measure.

                 Or, if you feel you're smart enough to figure it out on your own and skip the above option, the second option will be your fate.

         2. Until you decide to watch it again, you'll be haunted by your urge to understand exactly what was going on throughout the film. You will wake up in night-sweats, shaking in the corner of your bedroom with your wife staring at you with perplexed confusion. You will be unable to focus at work, telling everyone you're feeling the side-effects of the medication for the herpes. When you're porkin' your wife up against the Maytag washer/dryer combo (with variable steam settings... that was a deal) you'll be picturing your wife as each of the prostitutes through the film, hoping to find some clues there. But you won't. The longer you wait to watch it again the closer and closer you will come to becoming what Patrick Bateman is... a 100% psychotic nutbar.
                  
         Christian Bale is a fucking genius. After seeing this performance back in 2000, I became convinced he is one of the best actors on the planet. His portrayal of the lass-than-sane Patrick Bateman is literally flawless. There is absolutely nothing he could've done to make it any better. His ability to take a character and make it twice as good as any other actor could is a testament to his brilliance. Take Batman Begins, for example. Who would've thought the Batman films could be resurrected after the previous terrible nightmares they were dishing out? Not I. But Christian Bale brought the character of Batman back in a way that has never been done before. He made Batman one of the most badass muther fuckers in the history of comic book film adaptions again. He did the same with American Psycho... without the superhero persona. As a matter of fact, his character Patrick Bateman is the exact opposite of Batman. An immoral, murderous, womanizing asshole with a complete lack of touch with reality. I love it.
         There are many other famous actors such as Chloë Sevigny, Willem Dafoe, Josh Lucas, Justin Theroux and Reese Witherspoon who were all fantastic but there was one actor I wish they didn't cast... Jared Leto. I can't stand that guy! He's a pretty-boy asshole who is a dick in real life. I've never met him personally, but my ex-girlfriend knew him and thought he was a complete weirdo. I've also seen a couple of his interviews... dumbass! He's the only flaw in casting.
         The comedy aspect of American Psycho must be noted. If you like black humor, you'll end up bowing to the screen like Wayne and Garth in Wayne's World by the end. Patrick Bateman has a talent of bringing up facts about serial killers such as Ed Gein and Ted Bundy at the most random times. The tone of voice he uses while telling people such morbid things is downright hilarious! The black comedy assaults you through the entire film. Your stomach will hurt from laughing.

         If you haven't seen American Psycho, you are missing a masterpiece that only comes around once every 10 years. It's a film which could cause a dedicated horror fan to be offended if it was discovered you didn't have it in your collection. So I suggest avoiding the possibility of offending your fellow horror gluttons and add American Psycho to your library of the macabre... now.

         P.S. - I've added a music video below. It's by a band from Belgium called Aborted. The track is called Dead Wreckoning. They've sprinkled audio clips from American Psycho throughout the video. It rocks.

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          - Initial casting choices were Leonardo DiCaprio as Patrick Bateman, James Woods as Donald Kimball and Cameron Diaz as Evelyn Williams. Oliver Stone was set to direct.

          - When during a very early stage in preproduction Leonardo DiCaprio expressed interest in playing the lead, production company Lions Gate issued a press release that DiCaprio would star in the movie. Previously attached director Mary Harron walked off the project, because she had not been consulted about this decision and had wanted Christian Bale to play Patrick Bateman. Oliver Stone became involved to direct, creating ever more media frenzy, which also concentrated on the now sky-rocketing budget of the movie. When both DiCaprio (whose interest in this project had been grossly overstated) and Stone dropped the project, Harron and Bale returned to the movie.

          - Edward Norton was offered the part of Bateman but turned it down.

          - Bateman excuses himself from a conversation by claiming he has an appointment with "Cliff Huxtable". This was Bill Cosby's character's name in The Cosby Show.

          - Patrick Bateman works at the same firm as Sherman McCoy in The Bonfire of the Vanities: Pierce and Pierce.

          - Stars Christian Bale and Willem Dafoe have both played Jesus in previous films: Bale in Mary, Mother of Jesus and Dafoe in The Last Temptation of Christ.

          - The movie appearing on Bateman's TV while he's working out at home is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

          - Guinevere Turner, who plays Patrick's friend "Elizabeth" (in the scene with Christie the call girl), also wrote the film's screenplay.

          - All of the business cards read "Vice President".

          - The first porn movie Bateman is watching is White Angel.

          - Brad Pitt was once attached to star, with David Cronenberg directing and Bret Easton Ellis himself writing the script.

          - The events that Bateman mentions in the phone message to his lawyer are events that transpired in the book by Bret Easton Ellis, but not in the film.

          - In the DVD commentary, Mary Harron says that during the first shower scene with Patrick Bateman, all of the women on set gathered around to watch Christian Bale wash himself.

          - Two scenes featured unexpected improvisation by Christian Bale. When Bateman is jumping rope, he starts to skip and cross his jump rope as a schoolgirl would. Bale surprised director Mary Harron even more by starting to dance as Bateman was preparing to kill Paul Allen. That time, she says in interviews and the commentary, she collapsed with laughter.

          - To block the three-way sex scene with two prostitutes, Mary Harron and Christian Bale watched x-rated tapes. In her commentary, Herron says Bale made stick-figure drawings of the positions he thought would work best.

          - In each scene with Detective Donald Kimble (Willem Defoe), Mary Harron asked Defoe to portray his character three different ways: 1) Kimble knew Patrick Bateman killed Paul Allen, 2) Kimble didn't know Bateman killed Allen, and 3) Kimble wasn't sure if Bateman killed Allen. Harron would then edit the takes together, giving the audience an unsure vibe of what Detective Kimble thought of Bateman.

          - The only part of the movie that author Bret Easton Ellis didn't like was Bateman's moonwalk during Paul Allen's murder-scene.

          - A sign reading "This is not an exit" is shown in the closing scene. These are the last words of the novel.

          - The scene in which Patrick and Courtney are in bed (when she asks him if he'll call her before Easter) is taken from Ellis' first novel Less Than Zero. The conversation between Clay and Blair in that novel is almost identical to the one in the film (Easter has been substituted for Christmas). Although in the book American Psycho, Courtney (while lying in bed) does ask Patrick if he will call her before thanksgiving.

          - According to the DVD commentary by Mary Harron, the film is set in 1987. This is also confirmed when Patrick is briefly seen reading Zagat's Survey: 1987.