We’ve all seen our fair share of horror films throughout the many years of the entertainment industry, but honestly, the most fearful of these movies are those that depict the behavior and diabolical acts of psychopaths. Some films take these ideas to the extreme, and often fictitious, level; However, there are some films that show us the most vulnerable side of these psychopath behaviors like we have never seen or imagined before. So, in all of these various films that make up this genre, which film shows us the most realistic psychopathic behavior to date? Luckily for you, a group of psychiatrists has studied over 400 films, and revealing the answer. We are going to take a look at the most realistic psychopath depiction, and what makes it so genuinely frightening in this article.
“And The Winner Is…”:
Actually, when the studying of these many films concluded, there were three different actor portrayals that stuck out to psychiatrists, and we’re here to reveal them to you!
- Anton Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem) in ‘No Country For Old Men’: The character in the film approaches the idea and the actual deed of death as something that is completely normal. In fact, the group of psychiatrists who analyzed the character stated that he appears unaffected by the brutal killing and marking of individuals throughout the storyline, showing little to no emotion for the acts that are being committed. This normalcy in an act that is so heart wrenching and sinister is a trademark sign of a psychopath.
- Hans Beckert, ‘M’: The story of the 1931 German film, ‘M’, centers around a man who goes on a killing spree, with his victims all being children. While analyzing the film, the psychiatrists stated that the specific traits that are being exhibited in the main character would be traits that we see in child predators in our society today. The character also has a certain compulsion to murder that has more of a ritualistic aspect; This, along with the torment that he exhibits all the while, would lead psychiatrists today to actually diagnose him as a pseudopsychopath, or more commonly known as a sociopath.
- Henry Lee Lucas in ‘Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer’: This film, which was released in 1990, is a film that is somewhat based on the life of Henry Lee Lucas, who was an unstable and crazed man from Texas who would end up confessing to hundreds of murders that took place all across the nation. When psychiatrists analyzed this film, they easily found that he had all of the signs of an idiopathic psychopath, including his unstable personal life and relationships, along with his issues he had in planning ahead for the future.
Not What You Think:
If you were expecting us to name of characters from some of the more prominent and well known films of our time, such as Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates, and other terrifying characters, you would be mistaken. Although these characters indeed haunt our dreams at night, the psychiatrists felt that these individuals didn’t fit the ideal mold of a psychopath; In fact, they found that these characters that are so well known often are more delusional and even drastically psychotic to the most extreme of levels.
Do we have you second guessing yourself yet? From this study that was conducted by this group of psychiatrists, it is clear to see that the entertainment industry often takes the ideas and depictions that we often think about, and makes them so extreme that they don’t truly fit the mold. However, it seems as though it may just be more terrifying to see those characters that are the true psychopath, those that find normalcy and lack of emotion in the act of ending a life. It might be worth a watch to take a look at these characters that won the award of being the most realistic psychopaths in film history, as they will haunt your dreams.
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