Zodiac and the 9 best real life serial killer movies

We share the eight best biographical films about real-life serial killers, monsters so much worse than any fictitious creature appearing in folklore. Here are our favorite serial killer movies.

Biographical films about infamous killers are at the top of my watch list, and with the Halloween season approaching, what better time to stream some of the best serial killer movies?

Out of all the “monsters” we love to hear stories about, murderous humans are the only ones that are made of real flesh and blood and they’re the only ones people have yet to crack the code to. Humans, as a species, crave answers. We love knowing why, which is one reason why we love movie prequels and origin stories so much.

But serial killers, or psychopaths, are virtually unsolvable, and that makes them incredibly frightening. The cause of their actions is a mix of environmental influence and neurological defects, making them the equivalent of a massive puzzle that you’ll never solve because three pieces are missing. The only thing you can do is either trash the house looking for those missing pieces or just box it up and put it back on the shelf.

The first film about a serial killer on record is a seven-minute Portuguese film from 1909 called The Crimes of Diogo Alves. About the Portugal serial killer Diogo Alves, the short film was our first introduction to dramatic reenactments of serial murders, and even though it sucked, it got a remake in 1911 that was 23 minutes long.

The subgenre of true-crime influenced films is now a flourishing market with films like Zodiac, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Scream raking in the dough.

Some of the first documented serial killers were Jack the Ripper, H.H. Holmes a.k.a. Master of the Murder Castle, and the Poison Ring in Ancient Rome that’s believed to be made of the first serial killers in history. The Poison Ring was made up of two women and their somewhat 20 followers, that poisoned multiple men with potions they passed off as medicine.

The nine best serial killer movies to watch

9. My Friend Dahmer

There are too many movies about Jeffery Dahmer but My Friend Dahmer shows a different side to the story that is remarkably refreshing. Based on the graphic novel written by John “Derf” Backderf, who was Dahmer’s closest friend in high school, the film is about a teenage Jeffery Dahmer before he became the infamous serial killer.

Jeffery Dahmer, also known as “The Milwaukee Cannibal” or “The Milwaukee Monster” raped, murdered and dismembered 17 men and boys from 1978 to 1991. He often engaged in necrophilia, cannibalism, and preserved body parts claiming that by eating and storing his victims they would never leave him.

Dahmer was diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder, a schizotypal personality disorder, and a psychotic disorder but was deemed legally sane anyway and was sentenced to 15 terms of life imprisonment. He died on November 28, 1994, when he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate.

The film wisely omits all of that and goes further back in history to a more innocent time. The film shows Dahmer’s slow descent into madness while presenting some of the few ways that it could’ve been avoided. However, it never once tries to justify what he became. Even though My Friend Dahmer shows the killer (played by Ross Lynch) in a sympathetic light, it never lets the audience forget who he was.

In between moments of sadness where we see where Jeffery might have gone wrong, we’re shown inside his defective mind. He answers abandonment and sadness with disturbing fantasies and animal mutilations all the while keeping a hobby of dissolving roadkill in acid.