The 50 Best Horror Novels of All Time
American Psycho
By SEBASTIAN FAULKS, MAIL ON SUNDAY
If there is one thing I dislike more than violence, in life or on the cinema screen, it is the fin-de-siecle cult of the designer, which has seen shoemakers and tie manufacturers placed on the plinths vacated by painters and poets and in so doing has not only emasculated the British Press, but gone a long way to sterilising a whole province of contemporary art.
Imagine with what heavy heart, therefore, I sat down to watch American Psycho, a film about serial killing, disembowelment, cannibalism and the glamour of designer labels. It is based on Bret Easton Ellis's spectacularly witless novel on the same themes, which was published about ten years ago.
Ellis's idea, apparently, was that if you not only described a young serial killer-cum-cannibal at work in detail, but also listed, with gusto,
who had manufactured every piece of clothing worn by every character in every scene, this would constitute some sort of satire on greed.
Someone (an editor?) should have told him there is more to satire than that, involving a complex relationship between the object of ridicule, the
author and the reader.
You can't simply describe something in slavering
detail and then call it a 'satire': you have to manipulate, manoeuvre, engage, shape, spin and keep your moral compass through all the vertigo that ensues.
Films being even blunter instruments than books, and violence and designerism being the besetting sins of modern cinema, you would give no chance to a director on only her second picture of making something worthwhile out of Ellis's book.
Yet, surprisingly, Mary Harron's version of American Psycho has much of the wit and authorial nous that the novel lacked.
Harron knows what she thinks of the murderer, a young Wall Street operative called Patrick Bateman, and she knows what she thinks of the
high-gloss, brand-obsessed world in which he lives.
That the film ultimately does not add up is not Harron's fault; she has done a good rescue job on Ellis's material. While she has not been able to
deliver a working satire, she has made a purposeful and interesting movie.
As Bateman, Christian Bale has the difficult task of playing a character so blank that people frequently mistake him for someone else. 'I am simply not there,' he tells us early on.
By this, he means he is mentally absent and lacking personality, but is also a void in the bars and offices of Manhattan.He is everyman and no man; he is an extreme representation of the
tendencies of his corrupt society.
When songs by Phil Collins and Chris de Burgh came on as background tracks to a killing, there were some guffaws from the audience who are so steeped in designerese that they know naff when they hear it.
But there is more to satire than a quick self-congratulatory snort. There is more to
characterisation, too, even of a man without qualities.
Bale is impressively cold and manic as he goes about his bloody work, though by the standards of the contemporary cinema, the murders, carvings and decapitations are not excessively detailed: we do not, for instance, actually see him eating his victims' brains.
The sequence in which a prostitute in bed with Bateman and another girl suddenly sees blood on the sheet and runs for her life, Bateman chasing with a chainsaw, is a superb sequence of horror
filming.
There are moments of bleak comedy and some good, if easy, hits on the woman-hating, shallow, cruel young men of Bateman's world. When Bateman eventually tries to confess to his various murders, he can make no one believe him; they still think he is someone else: they even provide an unwanted alibi by honestly believing that Bateman was with them on the night in question.
This plot turn gives a good frisson, but its implications have not been properly thought out.
The Bateman we have seen so far would not suddenly break down and weep. When we are asked to believe that one of Bateman's victims, also, has been 'seen' since his death, and is therefore another everyman/no man figure, the story asks to be taken as a different form altogether ? As a nonrealistic metaphor.
Harron has made a stylish film, full of fluid movement and tensile surfaces. In the end, it is sunk by the shortcomings of the source material: there are too many internal inconsistencies, conflicting narrative registers and nonsensical characterisations.
But as a movie, pure and simple - a sequence of arresting pictures - it is pretty smart work.
{"status":"error","code":"499","payload":"Asset id not found: readcomments comments with assetId=5065, assetTypeId=1"}In Kokandy's 'American Psycho,' The Star Slays, But The Songs Are Bloody Awful
Like the 1991 Bret Easton Ellis novel that spawned it, "American Psycho: The Musical" is larded from start to finish with loathsome characters, jarring, violent instances of misogyny and homophobia and an over-the-top obsession with designer labels.
Like the book Ellis claimed was pure satire, the 1980s-set tuner that Kokandy Productions opened last week is centered on the world of 27-year-old Wall Street investment banker Patrick Bateman. In addition to being obsessed with bespoke suits, fine dining and his hero Donald Trump, Patrick is also a serial killer, mostly of women.
Directed for Kokandy by Derek Van Barham, "American Psycho: The Musical" follows Patrick as he slices up innocents in between meals at exclusive restaurants, workouts with his Ivy League-educated finance bros at upscale gyms and coke-fueled nights at the club. Patrick also goes to the office, but his work seems to consist primarily of comparing business cards (a metaphor for an especially testosterone-driven anatomical appendage) with his co-workers and remonstrating his secretary for wearing a pants suit to the office. (Only heels and dresses, Patrick dictates with a wolfish smile).
'American Psycho: The Musical'
According to a lecture Ellis gave in Chicago back in the early aughts before the release of the 2000 movie adaptation of "American Psycho," the story is a send-up of '80s-style materialism. But in the musical as in the book, Bateman's litany of skin-care products and Gaultier accessories read more like shopping lists for the 1 percent than any kind of social commentary.
Satire or not, "American Psycho: The Musical" (book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik) suffers from the same intractable problem that defined the novel: Bateman and his crew are vile people from start to finish. There's no growth, no evolution and no redemption. There is only a series of increasingly meaningless violence.
The other major problem here is ludicrous lyrics. The score includes several '80s hits from the likes of Phil Collins and Huey Lewis and the News, as well as original music from Sheik. The former are fine. The latter is typified by the inane "You Are What You Wear," sample lyric: "Mahi mahi/Works so well/With Isaac Mizrahi." Anther memorably awful song, "Hardbody," includes gems like "I like a hardbody/I bet that after this class/She teaches dirty karate."
There's not a lot director Van Barham can do to elevate such tripe.
All that said, Kokandy has a Patrick Bateman who radiates star quality from his slickly gelled hair to his impossible shiny shoes. As Bateman, Kyle Patrick is a creature of remarkable charisma and a dancer of flowing elegance and pile-driving athletic acrobatics. When he's on stage — whether in a wild-eyed killing frenzy or glowering over the font on his business card — he seems to be lit from within. The impish gleam in his eyes matches the sparkling knives he wields with a juggler's grace in the unimaginatively titled number "Killing Spree."
The other star here is Breon Arzell's alternately spiky and fluid choreography. Lewis' "Hip to Be Square" is a cheeky delight to watch, even if you know something bloody terrible is about to unfold. "Hardbody," inarguably dumb lyrics notwithstanding, is a hoot in its replication of frenetic disco-aerobics.
Far less engaging are the roles allotted to the women stuck in this story. As Bateman's girlfriend Evelyn, Caleigh Pan-Kita is sorely underused as a character who is essentially a mannequin, all surface and no interior. Bateman's secretary Jean (Sonia Goldberg), meanwhile, does little but follow her boss with yearning, puppy-dog eyes, hoping to be noticed.
Caleigh Pan-Kita (center, with Quinn Simmons and Danielle Smith) plays Bateman's thinly defined girlfriend, Evelyn.
Throughout, there are problems with Michael J. Patrick's sound design, which has the orchestrations blaring at a volume almost painfully loud; if you're seated next to a speaker, it's like being in the front row of an arena concert. You'll want a pair of earplugs. Music director Heidi Joosten's work suffers as a result; some of the solo numbers sometimes feel more like bad karaoke than musical theater.
Rachel Sypniewski's costumes have the men in (mostly) well-fitted suits that adequately mimic the uniform donned by the sort of '80s Yuppie who aspired to Wall Street millions and cited Trump as a role model. G. Max Maxin IV's spare set design makes the most of the downstairs space at the Chopin, although a couple of pillars in the basement venue sometimes make for challenging sightlines.
In the end, Kokandy's production has one massive plus in Kyle Patrick's sleek, sparkling performance. It makes "American Psycho: The Musical" a passable exercise in hate-watching, but little else.
Review: 'American Psycho' Is Now A Bloody And Gutsy Musical In The Chopin Basement
Kyle Patrick and John Drea with the cast of "American Psycho" by Kokandy Productions. (Evan Hanover/HANDOUT)
I last saw "American Psycho," the musical based on the 1991 Bret Easton Ellis novel and the 2000 movie shocker, in New York in 2017. The splatter show — think Broadway meets "Dexter," minus the morality and with an added dose of unreliable narrative pretension — flopped fast and disappeared in about six weeks. I haven't seen it since. I've never seen that as any great loss.
But Kokandy Productions and producing artistic director Derek Van Barham, hve been doing some interesting things of late in the Chicago-style basement of the Chopin Theatre in Wicker Park, one of my favorite spaces in town and the old semi-sacred stamping grounds of the auteur director David Cromer. So, I thought, another round with the 27-year-old investment banker and handsome serial killer Patrick Bateman, blue blood in his icy veins and whose idea of a good time does not stop with "sucking face" in some chandelier room with his vapid, Hamptons-going pals.
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"American Psycho" was, arguably the first in a 1990s line of fin de siecle novels featuring characters torn between sensual fulfillment and existential dread. "The world is going insane," poor messed-up Patrick observes at a moment of self-reflection, as every rich 27-year-old, ever, declares.
The shocking elements of the nihilistic novel were doubled down upon by the book writer, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, and the composer Duncan Sheik, who combined an original score with covers of the clubby standards of the era. The fun, retro experiences include "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," "Hip to Be Square" and "Don't You Want Me." Many have appealing harmonic arrangements to which this vocally adroit cast is perfectly capable of doing justice. Point of fact, those are the best sensual moments in the material.
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Still in 2017, it all felt very crass, shallow and filled with obnoxious, objectified characters, forced in some cases to twist in agony before you. Or, to put that another way, this felt like a vehicle for titillating New York's coked-up banker class in the premium seats while reassuring them they at least weren't as bad as this guy. Not unless they were going around stabbing their friends.
And now? Well, the piece, with its Walkmans and 30-inch screens and picture-in-picture, definitely feels more like a cultural visitor from another time and place, if not another planet, which increases its appeal to some degree.
And this is a production with extraordinary guts, which I do not intend as faint praise.
It's one thing to perform this stuff at the remove of a proscenium stage; it's entirely another to do it about a foot from the front row of the audience and make it all feel real, or real enough for the show. If you're interested in immersive design trends, check out the work here of G. Max Maxin IV, who somehow has crammed 120 seats into every corner of this space while staging the entire show on a runway so narrow as to hold only one chair. When the characters go to dinner at some impossible place to score a reservation, they sit in a row, emphasizing one of the show's major themes, a time and place bereft of true intimacy. Maxin, who also did lights and projections, is working without much of a budget either. Big, big talent.
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There are some young performers here well worth seeing, too, including Kyle Patrick, the enigmatic lead, sometimes decked in little more than his precious Calvin Kleins, doing his mischief upon assorted victims like business rival Paul, the similarly excellent John Drea. Many of the members of the ensemble are stuck with characters written as types, but they do their considerable best and I was especially taken with Sonia Goldberg, who plays Jean, and who listens intently and offers up the only heart that seems to be beating — which is more a comment on the writing than the acting.
I can't say I was convinced that "American Pyscho" was unfairly treated by critics in 2017. And I suspect that Kokandy wasn't allowed to change much, especially since they mostly are working to a track, with one live keyboard. That's a shame, because a tighter running time would be a big plus.
Hopefully, the pace will pick up over this relatively long run, by today's standards. You won't be bored for a moment. And if you're looking for a Halloween-time experience, the level of artistry found in Breon Arzell's choreography and elsewhere here already is much higher than you're likely to find in most of your alternatives.
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cjones5@chicagotribune.Com
Review: "American Psycho" (3 stars)
When: Through Nov. 26
Where: Kokandy Productions at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division St.
Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Tickets: $40-$50 at www.Kokandyproductions.Com
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