History NightmareFuel / AmericanPsycho

---> I stand up and walk over to the armoire, where, next to the nail gun, rests a sharpened coat hanger, a rusty butter knife, matches from the Gotham Bar and Grill and a half-smoked cigar; and turning around, naked, my erection jutting out in front of me, I hold these items out and explain in a hoarse whisper, "We're not through yet…". An hour later I will impatiently lead them to the door, both of them dressed and sobbing, bleeding but well paid. Tomorrow Sabrina will have a limp. Christie will probably have a terrible black eye and deep scratches across her buttocks caused by the coat hanger. Bloodstained Kleenex will lie crumpled by the side of the bed along with an empty carton of Italian seasoning salt I picked up at Dean & Deluca.

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--> I stand up and walk over to the armoire, where, next to the nail gun, rests a sharpened coat hanger, a rusty butter knife, matches from the Gotham Bar and Grill and a half-smoked cigar; and turning around, naked, my erection jutting out in front of me, I hold these items out and explain in a hoarse whisper, "We're not through yet…". An hour later I will impatiently lead them to the door, both of them dressed and sobbing, bleeding but well paid. Tomorrow Sabrina will have a limp. Christie will probably have a terrible black eye and deep scratches across her buttocks caused by the coat hanger. Bloodstained Kleenex
will lie crumpled by the side of the bed along with an empty carton of Italian seasoning salt I picked up at Dean & Deluca.

* The end of the infamous speech mentioned above (moved to the begining). As Bateman monologues, he slowly begins to peel off the face mask he had applied earlier... Which, rather than looking like removing a mask, looks like he is removing a layer of ''skin'' instead.

[[caption-width-right:350:''[[Music/TalkingHeads Psycho killer,]] [[Music/TalkingHeads77 qu'est-ce que c'est?]]'']]

* Patrick murders a child at the zoo by baiting him with cookies before stabbing him in the neck. The kicker is that the child doesn't actually die right away so Patrick ''pretends to be a doctor'' and ensures the death of the child in front of his panicking mother.

* Creator/ChristianBale's performance as Patrick Bateman. Through the attractive appearance, stylistic clothing, and 'warm' personality, you can tell something is... ''off'' about him. Even without the implications (or at least ''we think'') of being a murderer, you can tell there's something [[SanitySlippage is unsettling]] about him.

* The end of the infamous speech mentioned above. As Bateman monologues, he slowly begins to peel off the face mask he had applied earlier... Which, rather than looking like removing a mask, looks like he is removing a layer of ''skin'' instead.

** Add to the fact that Christie is screaming and running through the apartment and ''[[BystanderSyndrome nobody bothers to leave their apartments]]''.

-->"There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are comparable: ''I simply am not there.'' It is hard for me to make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My personality is sketchy, and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My consciousness, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever existed. There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused, and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. [[WhatIsEvil Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?]] My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this - and I have, countless times, in just about every act I've committed - and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. My punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge about myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant ''nothing''."

!! From the book:

!! From the movie:

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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/american_psycho_film_4.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''[[Music/TalkingHeads Psycho killer,]] [[Music/TalkingHeads77 qu'est-ce que c'est?]]'']]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/american_psycho_6.jpg]]

* Patrick performs rat torture on a kidnapped woman by [[spoiler:forcing a Habitrail tube into her vagina-- ''using acid to widen the orifice''-- then forcing a starved rat to crawl into her vagina. He removes the tube and watches as the rat eats the restrained woman from the inside out...]] Not in the movie for obvious reasons.

* In the case of [[spoiler:Bethany]], it was not only the horrific way she was murdered but the added 'you can never really know someone' aspect of it being a man she once dated.
** [[spoiler:Bethany]]'s death is so horrifying it loops around to being a TearJerker - she is the {{Woobie}} to end all Woobies. [[spoiler: She is effectively crucified with a nail gun, then violently forced to give Patrick oral sex repeatedly. The last we hear of her is when Patrick mentions he has cut her left arm off - he uses it to morbidly disfigure her corpse, bashing her repeatedly in the face, causing it to cave in on itself.]]

* Bateman's chaotic, disjointed and completely emotionless descriptions of sexual acts. For him, his sexual partners are just another thing he consumes in the same way he consumes champagne and buys expensive items. He describes women in exactly the same way he describes his furniture. Sex with them is a purely mechanical process, explained in extreme, vulgar detail.

[[caption-width-right:350:''Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?'']]

* Christian Bale's performance as Patrick Bateman. Through the attractive appearance, stylistic clothing, and 'warm' personality, you can tell something is... ''off'' about him. Even without the implications (or at least ''we think'') of being a murderer, you can tell there's something [[SanitySlippage is unsettling]] about him.

* Patrick murders a child at the zoo by baiting him with cookies before stabbing him in the neck. The kicker is that the child doesn't actually die right away so Patrick ''pretends to be a doctor'' and ensures the death of the child in front of its panicking mother.