Too Scary; Didn't Watch - AMERICAN PSYCHO with Andrew Cunningham and Craig Getting

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Custom business cards, sadism/depravity and a skincare routine that leaves behind nothing but skull, we're recapping AMERICAN PSYCHO! Andrew Cunningham and Craig Getting from the Overdue Podcast join us to discuss our corporate overlords / how perfectly scary Christian Bale is.Movie & Guest Intros @ 8:13Trivia @ 24:43Recap starts @ 36:02 TrailerFollow the show: @TSDWpodcast on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram.Check out our Patreon for bonus episodes and additional content!Rate Too Scary; Didn’t Watch 5 Stars on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review for Emily, Henley, and Sammy.Advertise on Too Scary; Didn't Watch via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. Hi everyone. This is Emily. Henley. And Sammy here with a very special announcement. We are doing an in-person live show in Los Angeles at Dynasty Typewriter on Wednesday, July 9th at 730 PM. We're going to be recapping Final Destination Bloodlines with special guest Lisa Gilroy. It's going to be so fun. There are going to

be some surprise segments and plenty of beta blockers. For us though, bring your own. We're not doctors, so we will not be giving them out at the show. And if you are not able to join us in person, the show is also available as a live stream and it will be available for a week if you purchase live stream tickets. You can get those tickets now at dynastytypewriter.com. We are thrilled and terrified to see you there. Happy Hell Shall I! This is Emily, Henley, and Sammy, and you're listening to Too Scary, Didn't Watch.

Hi everyone. Welcome to Too Scary, Didn't Watch, the horror movie recap podcast for those too scared to watch for themselves. I'm Emily and I am too scared to watch scary movies. I'm Sammy and I am too scared to watch scary movies. I'm Sammy and I love watching scary movies. And so I watch them so that you don't have to and you may notice we are missing Henley this week. Hate it. It's unfortunate, but she will be back.

Don't worry. Don't worry. And I'm excited nonetheless for this episode. It's still gonna be good. Nevertheless, we persist. Yeah, and I will say I am excited, which is good, because otherwise it'd be too hard to go on.

And Sammy, we have just a little bit of haunted housekeeping. Just a bit. Hellchella is right around the corner. Right around the corner. One week away. One week away. Oh my God. Mark your calendars.

For those who don't know, Hellchella is our summer series of all new releases. This is our second year doing it, so it's called two held two Chella this time. Exactly. Exactly. And for July, August, and September, we'll be covering all new releases starting next week with 28 years later. Very exciting.

I can't freaking wait. And in the second week of July, July 9th, we have a live show in Los Angeles at Dynasty Typewriter, July 9th at 7.30. Tickets available at dynastytypewriter.com and live stream tickets. If you are not in LA, you can watch it on your computer. Yes, you can.

Or TV, a lot of people do that. Yeah, there's a lot on your phone if you can figure that out, whatever you want. iPad. iPad, yes, yes, any sort of device. And we'll be recapping Final Destination Bloodlines with special guest Lisa Gilroy. Very exciting.

And now that we're through with all that business, same as anything scary happened to you this week. Uh, it did. And you know this because I pretty rudely sent you a photo, but my cat had so much diarrhea all over my house, including right on my bed. And he's fine. I think it was because he was, he's such an anxious guy. I think this was an anxious diarrhea situation, not a like sickness diarrhea. Cause he's same as ever. I mean the mind gut connection, you know, it's very strong. Exactly, exactly. Cause I was out of the house for truly less than 24 hours,

but I stayed a night out and I think it really upset him. I gotta get, some cats take Prozac and I'm looking into it because he needs some help. He's really- Yeah, we can't be living like this. Really an anxious guy. We can't be living like this. But I anxious guy. We can't be living like this. But I wanted to say for anyone with cats,

Emily, you already know this, but my mattress protector really saved the day because- Oh, you need it. Eh, we all need it. If I did not have that, I would be so upset because the whole mattress would have been ruined. I have two, so that as soon as one goes in the wash, the other one goes down on the mattress.

There's not a second where it's left unprotected. No, we cannot leave anything unprotected. Yeah. So if if you have pets or really just in general, I mean, why not have some extra peace of mind? Mattress cover technology, it's come really far. Like it's like you can have a nice one that doesn't feel like you've got plastic on your mattress. I'm just saying, like there's a lot of great options

out there. So just do your research. Do your research. And yeah, my cat's fine. Don't worry. It was bunk for those of you who know my cats by names. It was obviously bunk. But yeah, cleanup was a bummer.

That was a bit scary. We did get a photo, just a photo, just of diarrhea on the bed. I sent that to Emily and Henley and then afterwards it's like, I guess I shouldn't send people photos of my cat's diarrhea. You know what? But I was just so shocked and upset that there was diarrhea on the bed. This is what community is for.

Yeah. You shouldn't go through that alone. Thank you for being there for me during that trying time. Of course. We made it. We made it through. We did. And hopefully never again. Hopefully never again.

I'll keep you posted. I know you will. I know you know I will. Emily, what about you? Anything scary? I have a home life related scary thing as well, which is, you know, Joel and I live next door to a family, a family of four.

And last year, the eldest child graduated high school and proceeded to have parties all summer long in the backyard, the backyard, which is exactly next to our living room. And these were outdoor backyard parties with loud music and loud teens. And it was horrible. And teens just like have no boundaries.

They have no timelines. They have no, they could go all day, all night. They have terrible taste in music. It's awful. It's awful. And then he went away to college and it was a real thrill for us. We were really, really, really, really thrilled.

And the other day we saw him and we realized he's back for the summer and he better believe they're having parties again. And it's really Joel's been really, it's been like a real crisis of faith for him to now be the adult who's upset about the teenagers having a party next door. He's like really having a hard time with that. I'm not having, I'm not, I'm fine with that part of myself. I I'm not up. I'm like, this is fine. They're stupid, I'm an adult, I am annoyed, they shouldn't be making noise, there should be rules, there should be curfews. But the other night they were having what I believe

to have been like a great Gatsby theme party. They were playing like loud, bad jazz, like techno covers. They always, you've seen this, Sammy, because they've had one on New Year's. They like sit out on the entrance to the backyard, a group of teen boys sits there, like as if they're like bouncers to the party.

So they were wearing bow ties the other night. And so I saw that and I was like, well, that's weird. And then we heard the music and that was the only music that was played all night. And you know, I just hate it so much. I hate it so much. It sounds really bad. It's so bad. It's so annoying.

Like they do it all the time. It's like four nights a week. They're having these parties like don't you guys have summer jobs? Like what is going on? Yeah. Teens are a blight. And you said that you've spoken or Joel has spoken to their mom. And she's unfortunately like a cool mom has spoken to their mom and she's unfortunately like a cool mom and she's like, she's having fun.

I'd rather them do it here than somewhere else. And it's like, I wouldn't, I would love for them to do it somewhere else. I can't believe like none of these kids have none of his friends host the parties. Like it's just always here. And I get it because they've got the cool mom and it's like, unfortunately to be a cool mom, you're a bad adult. Like you're not a good neighbor. You're not a good community member.

Like you should be more concerned about like being a good member of the community. And I really hate it. And we're thinking about having to move soon, like unrelated, but truly I'm like, we got to get out of here. Like I'm not, I can't do this. I cannot do another summer of an 18 year old, 19 year old having backyard parties.

So yeah, I'm really sorry that you're going through that. If you ever need any support in the form of sending me a picture or a video of what's happening, I'm happy to. I have sent you videos before of the noise and I wish I'd remember to get the Gatsby. I'm sure it'll happen again. So yeah, I'll keep you posted. Really unfortunate stuff.

Really unfortunate stuff. Really unfortunate stuff. But we soldier on. We must. We must. And I did soldier through some scary stuff this week, which is that I watched this week's movie. I also, and we'll get into it, I read the accompanying book for this movie

and that was the worst thing that I've ever done. But what I also did was I watched the movie and that was actually pretty great. And that was the worst thing that I've ever done. But what I also did was I watched the movie and that was actually pretty great. And that was American Psycho. Very excited we're finally covering this movie. It feels like been a long time coming. American Psycho was released, Sammy, April 14th in the year 2000.

Birthday gift for you. A birthday gift for me and for Christian Bale's wife, also born on April 14th. Oh wow, and also the day the Titanic sank. Huge day in history all around. Well, it officially sank the 15th, but it started. But it started sinking on the 14th. It was a two day sink, two day sink.

Yes, came out April 14th, year 2000, directed by Mary Heron, screenplay by Mary Heron and Guernivere Turner, based on the novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, starring Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Samantha Mathis, Matt Ross, Bill Sage, Chloë Savenier, Kara Seymour, Justin Theroux, Guinevere Turner, and Reese Witherspoon.

And we are joined by two guests. You may know them from Overdue Book Podcast, Craig and Andrew, thank you for being here. Hello. Welcome. Hello, I wish I could be under better circumstances. You know, this is better than the last time we met. That's true, that's true.

I'll say that. Yeah. We did start by talking about the book, which is. We did. I mean, I always prefer to do a bad thing first and then do a good thing after. Same, we did this correctly. Yeah, we should say that this is kind of part two

of our two part series. We were on Overdue to talk about the book. So you can go back and listen to that as well. If you want to. Never read the book. Listen to that episode, but don't read the book. Don't ever read the book. Unless you ever, don't ever read the book. Unless you're on the list of people that Emily says

needs to read the book for some sort of punishment or moral improvement. Correct, and I do not think any of them listen to this show. I will say we're not exactly the target demographic for who I'm talking about, but if you are, maybe you know who you are. But nobody else read it, ever. But hi, maybe you know who you are. Nobody else read it ever.

But hi guys, welcome to the hopefully more enjoyable version of this. Probably. I enjoyed the time that we had together. It was just the time spent preparing for it was better. Correct. Yes, yes. Andrew, Craig, did anything scary happen

to you guys this week? Craig, do you have something to eat up? I have something. I have, like, two small things. One... Reading the book American Psycho does not count. No, it does not count. One, I went to a grocery store yesterday, and I went to an aisle,

and you know those things that hang over the aisle, that are the little, like, placards of, like, what's gonna be in the aisle. It had Pringles twice. It had a designated sign for Pringles and there were two of them. The other two were mixers, parentheses, drink and ice cream toppings.

What? This sounds tough for you. Wow. I turned the corner and lo and behold, there were way more Pringles in there than I thought could ever have been made. Oh my God. So they did have to it was a Pringles aisle twice. Two times.

Yeah, it was like two times Pringles in there. It was kind of Springles mixers and ice cream. Yeah, topping. Yeah, ice cream topping. Yeah, mixers parentheses drink. Let's speak. Drink. Let's be specific.

Right. Yeah, it's a very I don't like that grocery store. It's just the one that's on the way home from the Home Depot. So it's always, I never know what's going on in there. Those types of moments. I feel like, yeah. Make you feel like you're in a simulation or something. I had that during, we haven't talked about this in a while, but during COVID I had like little moments of like his life real Because I was just alone in my house and like, who's to say if this is actually happening? My therapist told me to hold an ice cube in my hand in those moments. And so for things like that, I'm like, you gotta hold an ice cube in that moment. Yeah, cut to me walking around the grocery store

holding it. That'll make you feel much more normal. That's all you have to do. The other scary thing, I did have a scary dream this morning. I have, my wife is out of town, my son's at his have to do. The other scary thing, I did have a scary dream this morning. I'm like, my wife is out of town, my son's at his grandmother's house, and I woke up this morning all by myself in the house, having just had a dream where I was like hanging out

with friends I haven't seen in years, and then all of a sudden, we were being encroached on by a ring of people, donned a script, some sort of cult or zombie situation, and they were humming, and then I spent the rest of the morning with their humming in my head. That was terrible. It was terrible.

I don't like that. Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah, I don't like that at all. That's bad. I don't have an explanation. I didn't like, this is the scariest story I've encountered in the last week,

and none of this, none of American psychos seem to apply, but yeah. Yeah. So don't love that. Don't go to the Pringles, Pringles aisle, or this could happen. That's what did it. Andrew. So we've been in the house that we're in now for three years as of a couple of months ago, and it's been the first house we ever had. This had like a big yard in it. And so there's been a lot of just like learning how to have a yard and how to make it look nice and how to keep up with it. And this year's the year I finally

got a garden bed in. So I'm trying to grow some food. I'm excited about the possibility that some of it might survive to become edible. But yeah, there is nothing in my experience that will make a plant want to die like your desire for it to stay alive. Yeah. Yeah. So I've got I've got tomatoes in the ground. I've been fussing over these my my children, my other I mean, I have a child, a literal human child also, but in another in another way that tomatoes have become my children. Yes. And I've been fussing over them for a couple of weeks since I got them in the ground.

And yesterday I saw some spots on the leaves of one of them that I think. Oh no. And again, this is very much like trying to find like stuff on WebMD and just getting to cancer all the time. Just like everything is blight on a tomato. But I've identified what I think it is. I've cut the leaves off that had the spots.

I got some, like I emergency ordered some fungicide that I'm going to spray on it. And I'm just going to, I'm going to spray it and I'm going to come cross my fingers. But that was, that was the scariest thing. Oh, it's hard. My tomato fungus. Yes. I'm, I am afraid of growing plants for this reason because I get so invested and exactly they just die.

They know how bad I want them to live and prosper. Yeah. Normally I would just be like, okay, I'll just start again. But the realities of the growing season is like, if your tomato is dead in July, sorry, you just got to wait till March. Like that's it. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm doing till March. Like that's it. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm doing my best to hang in over here, but yeah, I, I'll be, I'll keep your tomatoes, your tomato children in my thoughts.

Yeah. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Sending them the best. Well, what are your guys's thoughts on scary movies in general? Are you fans? Are you not? What do you think, Andrew? I just talked to you. Go again. Okay. Okay. Well, I mean, my thoughts on scary movies. I said this on the overdue that we did, but, um, I do not like to watch them. I do not like sitting in front of a screen and just being tense, whether I'm by myself or with other people, but I do really like reading summaries of what happened in a scary movie. Yep.

I like to see, okay, this is the part of the story where somebody begins to descend into madness or this is the part where it becomes clear what the horror actually is. But I like to know that in the sort of black text on white background of a Wikipedia article and not of a movie that I'm watching on my screen. No accompanying sounds and images. Yeah. I can just control how I'm ing on my screen. No accompanying sounds and images. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can just control how I'm ingesting the content in that way. Yeah.

I don't really watch them. I'm not opposed to being scared. I have like a sort of nostalgia for the late 90s, early aughts, like your scream, know what you did, like that era. I was just going to the movies a lot. You know, they were putting pretty teens in the movies and I was going and I was a teen and there you go. And sometimes they didn't all make it through. This is back when teens were good, not like now when they're not like now.

Teens were good then They've gone downhill. And so I have like, you know, but I'm not somebody who's just going to like, you know, fire up whatever just came out. Let me, I think maybe the last, I saw, you know, I saw Sinners. That's but yeah, we count, we count Sinners. We count that. Yeah. I saw paranormal activity.

Whoa, that's a big one. In a movie theater. Oh, in the theater. With my mom and we both. Ooh. With your mom. We both had it. We were both sold by the trailers,

by the commercials with all the people, like screaming and peeing themselves. And we were like, we gotta go. It's very scary. The night vision on the audience. Yeah. But no, I'm not a regular horror movie watcher. And I think sometimes I like too much gore

or certain types of gore can get me. So I will lean out when that is like the focus of the film. Yeah, like any interest in the genre I could have ever had as a young teen or young adult, like our Spanish teacher like to put on like 40 minutes of a movie when I just didn't feel like trying on a given day. And so I did, we did watch, I think it was the ring. Is the ring the one with the part where the horse like jumps off the boat and

gets destroyed? Yeah. Just like, let's just watch this part of the ring where the horse gets annihilated. Was it the Spanish dub? Oh no, no, no, no. No, it was just, it was just the movie, The Ring. Oh, wow. So really nothing to do. Yeah. I mean, we also watched like 40 minutes of Stand and Deliver.

So there were some like attempts at educational content going on. And we watched 40 minutes of Selena, that movie. I watched a lot of Selena in Spanish classes through the years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which again is an English language film. I watched this horse die and I was like, you know what, this is not for me. Yeah. Fair.

I have such a strong memory of seeing that scene particularly in theaters and having no idea how they did it and feeling like they must have killed that horse. They must have destroyed a horse. Like I just, very upsetting stuff. How about this movie? Had you seen it before it was given to all of us as homework? No.

No, never did. I had not. Fun! Okay, cool. Because this is such, I mean, such a classic. It's obviously been out for 25 years, which is very crazy. And I, too, had never seen it, tried to, talked about this on Overdue,

Sammy and I watched it with friends at Christmas, but you had already seen it, Sammy. Yes. But it was to be my first viewing, American Psycho on Christmas, as you do. And it was after a whole day of Christmasing and drinking, and I fell asleep for the whole movie. And so this was my first viewing in anticipation

of this episode and I, we read the book, which nobody should ever do unless you're on the short list I have. And so watching this movie after having digested some of the story, I gotta say, I absolutely loved it. It was a salve, a bomb. It was.

It really was. Healed old wounds. It healed old wounds. I'm curious how you guys felt. I'm curious how you guys felt. About this. So we did it in the opposite order mostly. Like we watched the movie together before we had both finished the book.

And it's funny that even doing it in that order, like when I was watching, when the, the experience of sitting and watching the movie for me, it was like, this is the weird, this is one of the weirder things that I've seen a group of people get together and like commit to film. But after reading the book, I was like, wow, what a, what a, what a hilarious light romp that this, that this film was like, wow, what a, what a, what a hilarious light romp that this, that this film was like, it made it, it made the relative lightness of the

film like stick out more in retrospect. And it sounds like reading the book first and then watching the movie gets you pretty much to the same place. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think I was maybe two thirds of the way through the book when we watched it, Andrew. And so I'd already met the detective character and had a sense of where, well, I didn't really know where the book was gonna go, but I had a sense of the types of things.

No, I didn't really know that. I just... Yeah. I mean, what was clear even from having just read the first quarter of it or so that I had read made it clear that this movie as an adaptation is pretty faithful. Like it is doing a lot of condensing.

It's doing a lot of like sort of recontextualizing things but it is not like loosely adapted from the book American Psycho. Like you can get to the business card scene. Line lifts. And you're like, oh, this is the famous business card scene from the book American Psycho. Like it oh, this is, this is the famous business card scene from the book, American Psycho. Like it's pretty, it's pretty, pretty spot on in a lot of parts.

Yeah. I think it's such a brilliant adaptation. Like I was saying, I feel like it is it all at once to me validates the book's existence while making the book completely unimportant. It's like nobody ever needs to touch that book. Like it like both makes it a worthwhile piece of art, this story somehow, but also goes like, this is actually how you do it.

How about what's done in the book? Nobody needs that. That's not correct. And I feel like this is how you do it. We talked about that a bit on Overdue, how it's just like the book just goes and goes and goes and goes and like hits that same point over and over and over.

And does kind of glorify the violence. Yeah. And so this is just the perfect amount of, you know, there's violent scenes, but it's not like hitting you over the head with them constantly. It also doesn't focus on the violence in the same way. Like all the violence is shown like on him

and not necessarily on, like it's, yeah, I just think it's like, especially knowing what the book is. I was like, wow, yeah, this is how you do it. For those who haven't like read it or haven't listened to our episode yet, the novel is all like first person perspective from Christian Bale's character, Patrick Bateman.

So you're just locked in. You can't get, you know, you're stuck. Yeah, I was a little kid. I got stuck. I got stuck on Splash Mountain for like 45 minutes. It was terrible. We couldn't get out. We were in a tunnel.

We couldn't leave like that, but worse. And when you're watching the movie, you have the you have the remove of like you're not inside his head. It is, there's a couple of quotes from the director about it being a film like kind of from his perspective still, but it's not quite the same. And she takes, Mary Heron does, she takes pains throughout the film to give you reaction shots from the women in the film.

They're never like, you know, they're rarely ever driving a scene if ever. give you reaction shots from the women in the film. Yes. They're never like, you know, they're rarely ever driving a scene if ever, but the fact that you actually get a sense of just little bits of who they are or what they think about him, even if they're mistaken, which the book is not interested in giving you. No. And it wouldn't be the book that it is if it did,

but that's also why Emily's like, well, you don't need that. It's fine. Come on into the movie theater with me. It's okay. Yeah. And this, and, and there is zero male gays in this movie in a way that is astounding given the book. And yeah, the women are not really important characters, but you feel their fear. You feel their anxiety. You feel like you, you are given all these little hints of like why it is scary

to be a woman in the world, let alone in this situation with him. And it's also, it makes fun of Patrick Bateman a lot more obviously, like Patrick Bateman is such a fucking loser. And like the book tries to tell you that, but it's because you can't like see him externalized in the same way.

You can't like, which is also amazing to say because Christian Bale is essentially perfect looking in this movie. Like it's actually insane, but he's still a huge loser. And yeah, I'm so impressed by how she pulled this off and thank God a woman did this movie. Thank God. Yeah, it's really unexpected.

I just can't believe it worked out so well. Given the source material, this could have gone so bad. This could have gone really bad. There's a very long oral history that the site movie maker did with Mary Heron and Christian Bale and Guinevere Turner and a bunch of the other people who are involved for the 20th anniversary of the movie in 2020. And yeah, there are a bunch of good quotes in there, but like to their perspective

and what they were bringing to the movie, Mary Heron says, what occurred to me is that just enough time had passed to make a period film about the 80s and say things about the 80s and bring out the satire, which is not true of the book. The book is happening in that part of the nineties. That's still basically the eighties. And so when Patrick Bateman is telling you about how much he loves Huey Lewis in the

news, you're like, are we, is this, is this where the consensus was on Huey Lewis in the news in 1991 and in the year 2000 when he's speaking about Huey Lewis in the news, it's clear, oh, this is the goofy band Huey Lewis in the news. This is not a guy whose opinion we need to take seriously. But Bale says, talking about him and Mary Heron and how they were just talking all the time about this movie and this character, I think the thing that united us on it is that I had no interest in his background, childhood, and she didn't either. We looked at him as an alien who landed in the unabashedly capitalist New York of the

eighties and looked around and said, how do I perform like a successful male in this world? And that was our beginning point. And we didn't want to talk about why he was this way, what happened in his childhood. There was none of that between Mary and I. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. There's no humanizing of him. There's no like who, why did he, how is he so fucked up?

Empathizing with something bad that happened. And no, we don't need to understand it. The point is he's a monster and that's just that. Yeah, let's get into some trivia because there's some really fascinating trivia about this movie. I will say it is a 68% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 64, surprisingly low, a 64 on Metacritic

and a 7.6 on IMDB, which is- This is a little concerning. I am a little troubled. IMDB. I am a little troubled. I am a little troubled. Yeah. The budget was seven million, box office 34 million. A big thing with Patrick Bateman, with all the men in this world,

all the people in this world are very obsessed with designer status, who made what, the brands, all the wealth and things they've acquired. And the character, Patrick Bateman in the book, especially like is constantly name dropping what he's wearing, what everybody else is wearing. And the film had various problems with designer labels during production. So Rudy agreed to allow Christian Bale to wear their clothes, but not when he was killing anyone. Rolex agreed that anyone in the film could wear their watches except Patrick Bateman.

There's a famous line, in the book it's don't touch the Rolex. The movie they had to change it to, don't touch the watch. Perry Ellis provided underwear at the last minute after Calvin Klein pulled out of the project and Comme des Garcons refused to allow one of their overnight bags to be used to carry a corpse, so Jean Paul Gauthier was used instead. Wow. Christian Bale insisted on getting Brett Easton Ellis' approval for his portrayal before filming. And so they had a lunch that was Christian Bale,

Mary Heron and Brett Easton Ellis. Bale showed up to the meeting dressed and groomed as Bateman, introduced himself as Patrick Bateman. After 10 minutes, Easton Ellis begged him to stop because his hands were shaking and he could not take it anymore. He said it was the single creepiest moment of his life. Christian Bale underwent extensive dental work

in order to play the character of Patrick Bateman. He had his teeth fully redone to be like perfect teeth. Wow. This man, which is even more insane when you get it. I'll get into like the casting process maybe, but yeah. You can kind of tell as you're listening to him speak a little bit in the film. They're new, he sounds like new teeth.

Yeah, and he's like, you know, he's doing an American accent and it's still pretty early in his career. So you have to imagine that like, he's still figuring out what version of that he wants to do. It's also this like amalgamation of different New York yuppie characters, but that yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, he drew inspiration from Nicholas Cage and Vampire's Kiss. Yes, that makes a lot of

sense. Tom Cruise in an interview on late night with David Lerner. Yeah, both and it does feel likeman. Yeah. Both, both tracks. And it does feel like that. Yeah, there's one scene in particular that it's like, is exactly Nicolas Cage in Vampire's Kiss. I had that thought, like sunglasses in the office. Yes. Oh my God.

That's Peter Lowe. That's Peter Lowe. Christian Bale wowed his cast members by demonstrating incredible bodily control response in his role of Patrick Bateman regarding the business card scene, director Mary Harren revealed that Josh Lucas and Justin Theroux came up to her after one of the takes and said he breaks into a sweat at the same time every time. What? That's like that scene from Babylon where Margot Robbie can like cry a tear from each eye on command. They're like, no, left eye, right eye. I'm just switching it up. He is very sweaty in that scene.

He's very sweaty. He's very sweaty in that scene. He's very sweaty in multiple scenes in a way that- I didn't know you could control that. Christian Bale in this movie, I was saying this is him before we got on, that I think part of the reason why I love this movie so much is I haven't really taken in a lot of his best performances

because he does movies that are very upsetting. Yeah. I think this might be like the single greatest acting performance of all time. Like I was so blown away by him in this movie in a way that's like, it's Christian Bale in American Psycho, but I was like, you have to be kidding. Like this performance, this is insane.

He's so good. Insane. And it's one of those movies that like, it couldn't be anybody else. Like that's, it's like, it has to be him. Which is why it's very insane that the way we got to this movie. So the book came out in 1991.

Rights were bought in 1992 to turn it into a movie. But that first attempt didn't happen until 94, and it went into development with David Cronenberg directing and Brad Pitt as Patrick Baker, with Brett Easton Ellis as the screenwriter. Cronenberg hated Brett Easton Ellis's screenplay, so he hired Norman Snyder to write the screenplay, hated that one even more, and then quit.

So then in 1995, they brought on Rob Weiss to direct, and Bretty Snellis was the screenwriter, but then that sort of fizzled. So then in 1996, they brought the script and the project to Mary Heron, and she then agreed that she would direct it, but only if she could write the screenplay genius.

And so they brought her on and then she brought on Gwenevere Turner to co-write with her. So then that, then we had Mary Heron and Gwenevere Turner, Mary Heron directing needed to cast the movie. They cast Billy Crudup. He was playing Patrick Bateman and he dropped out because he didn't understand the character and was getting very uneasy with the role. Sure.

So that's when they brought it to Christian Bale. Mary Heron had seen him and something was interested in him. He at first was not super interested, but then read the script and became like, okay, I have to play this part. Mary Heron then, yeah, said it was like, he's the only person that can play this. After he auditioned, she was like, it's him.

He has the same perspective on it that I do. She also said that when auditioning others, she quote, had the feeling a lot of the other actors kind of thought Bateman was cool. Bale did not. That's important. Really important. Okay, 1998 rolls around and Lionsgate buys the distribution rights, but they did not

want Christian Bale because he wasn't a big star and they were like, we need a big star attached and it's not going to work with him. They wanted Leonardo DiCaprio. I heard that. Mary Heron was like, that wouldn't work. He's like too boyish. He's too beautiful. He's too beloved.

Like it's not going to work. It needs to be Christian Bale. And so then it can, in 1998, Lionsgate made an announcement that Pastor Pape was being played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Oh wow. Which led to Mary Heron getting fired because she was like, well, I'm not making the movie without Christian Bale, so they're like, fine, you're fired. So they brought on Oliver Stone to direct.

Oh boy. They did a reading with DiCaprio, Jared Leto, and Cameron Diaz. Began reworking the script, but Stone and DiCaprio had very different takes on it. They also wanted to take it overall in a more psychological direction in contrast to being a satire. They wanted it to be like a Jekyll and Hyde like story. And it was from the beginning,

seemed like it really wasn't going to work. And Christian Bale was so confident DiCaprio would depart that he turned down other roles for nine months and continued preparing to be Patrick Bateman. Wow. Getting his teeth done and stuff. Getting his teeth done, bulking up like crazy. It's a long time to listen to Huey Lewis in the news. He was apparently also still calling Mary

Heron during that period and like being like, let's talk about this. And Mary Haran's like, you know, other people are making this movie without us now, right? Literally, neither of us are making this movie. And he was like, yeah, we are. Yeah, we are. Yeah, we are. Wow.

So then Leonardo DiCaprio dropped out to do the beach. So then Oliver Stone dropped out. So then Lionsgate rehired Mary Haran, but they still didn't want Christian Bale. They offered the role to Ewan McGregor, who turned it down after Christian Bale personally asked him to turn it down. Mary Heron then spoke with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Edward Norton, and Vince Vaughn. All of them declined. Wait, isn't Vince Vaughn, doesn't he have a connection to this movie though?

Sorry, keep going. Ooh. But so they all turned it down, and so then finally Lionsgate agreed to hire Christian Bale, but only with a salary of $50,000. And that is how we finally got this version of this movie. Wow. See, this is what I mean. Like, there's just so many ways it could have gone wrong. Yeah.

Sorry, I was thinking of Psycho. Vince Vaughn played Norman Bates. Oh, and that like shot for shot remake of Psycho? Yes, my brain had like a little itch there. I knew something. Yeah. Unrelated. Really wild stuff.

Kristen Bale, you got to love it. We're talking about the perspective of Heron and Turner as like screenwriters and making the film. I had read an article that Heron wrote in the London review of books last year because they were doing a screening of the film and she was talking about working with Turner. I think that we bolstered each other. Guinevere is very iconoclastic.

She doesn't care about convention and she wasn't afraid. She had just made a successful lesbian comedy and I had done this film about a radical 1960s feminist. How was anybody going to tell us that we're misogynist? How was anybody, especially a male critic, going to tell us that we should or shouldn't make a film about this? Incredible. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole after watching this movie of interviews with everyone and in particular looking up stuff about Mary Harim because I'm just like so enamored with her now. I'm like, how did you cool? Yeah, she's so fucking cool.

I'm like, how did she pull this off? What is her deal? She totally rules. I watched her like Criterion Closet that she did recently. She's like so fucking cool. One of your turners also in this movie briefly, she plays. Is it a little get to Elizabeth? Elizabeth. briefly. She plays, we'll all get to. Elizabeth? Elizabeth, yes. Oh, okay.

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and your three-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash too scary. That's mintmobile.com slash too scary. Upfront payment of $45 required equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan taxes and fees extra see MIT mobile for details Okay, we begin white screen Black title credits. We're getting a slow drip of what looks like blood. We realize it's sauce

of what looks like blood. We realize it's sauce plating a beautiful plate at a fancy restaurant. We see all these plates coming around, very like white glove kind of place, tweezer plating plates. Finally come to this table of men, men in suits, slicked back hair. They all have so much fucking gel in their hair.

This is Justin Theroux who plays Bryce, Josh Lucas who plays Van Patten. Van Patten I think, yeah. Another guy who plays another guy. But they're all kind of the same. If you confuse all the guys that is actually thematically appropriate given what the movie's trying to do. Yeah, and so the first conversation we're seeing them

have is they're like, is that Reed Robinson over there? No, no, no, that's Paul Allen. No, that's trying to do. Yeah, and so the first conversation we're seeing them have is they're like, is that Reed Robinson over there? No, no, no, that's Paul Allen. No, that's not Paul Allen. That's Paul Allen. Even they can't tell people apart, but they're like, oh, is Paul Allen handling the Fisher account? Yeah, lucky bastard.

Okay, also, I just want to say all these men are incredibly homophobic, racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic. So I'm not going to say all the things they say, but they say some shitty things. One of them, Josh Lucas's character is talking anti-Semitic shit on Paul Allen. He's like, I've seen him spitting a menorah in his office. And Christian Bayliss, Patrick Bateman says, it's not a menorah, it's a dreidel.

And just cool it with the anti-Semitism. Yeah, let's cool it with the anti-Semitic remarks. So our first intro to Patrick Bateman is like, and they're like, oh yeah, that's right, the nice guy, the boy next door, because he doesn't like their anti-Semitism. A $500 bill comes, they all talk about how reasonable that is for their lunch,

and they throw down each of them their American Express platinum cards. Their identical cards, yeah. Mm-hmm. Go to the club. And Patrick Bateman is trying to pay for his drinks with a drink ticket. The bartender tells him, we're not taking those anymore. It's now a cash bar.

He looks right at her as she makes the drinks and he says, you're a fucking ugly bitch. I want to stab you to death and play around with your blood. She either doesn't hear it or completely ignores him, makes the drinks, takes his cash, walks away. Next morning, we're in Patrick Bateman's gorgeous New York apartment. White walls, white furniture, clean, pristine, a big telescope. What is that telescope for? What does it do? Do I have to tell you what telescopes are for? I just, it just doesn't seem like the type. No, it doesn't matter.

Stargazing. Doesn't matter. But it's probably like an expensive piece of equipment. Whatever the biggest brand name in telescopes is. Exactly. And we get a voiceover while we watch him going about his morning routine. I live in the American Gardens building on West 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman.

I'm 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I'll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub,

and on the face, an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries out your face and makes you look older.

Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm, followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. There is an idea of 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 probably comparable, I simply am not there. Yep. And it's worth noting that he is so ripped and has like gorgeous, glowing, clear skin. It's like he is- He put in the work, Christian Bale put in the work. He put in the work. I'm glad you read that passage too.

This happens throughout the film. There are these narration sections. And because it's a work of adaptation, they get to do the fun thing where like this one and a couple others later in the book, they're pulling them forward from a pretty big chapter late in the book where he's having dinner with Gene, his secretary who's in love with him.

And it's like you're in his head, and he's like really kind of come to a big conclusion or coming to a conclusion about himself and his persona. And they get to make this movie with the knowledge of that and like sprinkle it out, and it definitely changes, it allows them to do things with the character that the novel doesn't. Yeah, the structure is so, so good.

It's like so well done the way she moves things around for this movie. Yeah. I think she brings in the detective a lot earlier. Yes, she does. Yeah. And I mean, everything like starts so much. Yeah. So it's like you really. Yeah. To the extent that I was wondering, like, is this is the point of this movie? Like he is now trying to like stay ahead of this detective person. And it ends up not being that at all. Yeah.

But there was enough room for that to be the movie if that's what they wanted to do. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, I read half the book. I read 200 pages of the book and none, almost nothing that happens in the movie had happened yet. Yes.

So again, I'll say, don't read the book. It's so long, y'all. Like. Whew. And that's hardly the biggest problem with it. Hard cut. We got Walking on Sunshine playing, and we see Patrick Bateman listening to his Walkman,

entering the office. Someone greets him, calls him Hamilton. Totally different name. He just keeps on walking. He goes into his office. His secretary, Jean, who's in love with him, played by Chloé Savenier, is giving him his messages for the day. He asks her to make reservations for him for dinner. He goes into his office, his secretary, Jean who's in love with him, played by Chloe Savigne,

is giving him his messages for the day. He asks her to make reservations for him for dinner. She says, something romantic? She's again, clearly in love with him. She's like, you look nice today, Patrick. And she, on her way out the door, he says, don't wear that outfit again. She says, what?

I didn't hear you. And he says, come on, you're prettier than that. Oh, it's awful. And she walks out the door, he says, and high heels. I like high heels. And she sort of like rolls his eyes like, oh, Patrick. But we know she's going to do it. That night he goes to dinner with Evelyn,

his, he says, my so-called fiance, that's played by Reese Witherspoon. They're in the cab. He's listening to music on his walk when she's going on and on talking about wedding planning. And she's like, oh, and Annie Leibovitz, we have to get Annie Leibovitz. She asks him, you know, Patrick, you're ignoring me. We should get married, we should have a wedding.

He says, no, I can't take time off work. She says, you hate your job, your father practically owns it, you might as well quit. Why don't you just quit? He turns to her, He pulls this half of us off. He turns to him and he says, because I want to fit in. It's so good. She's really like, I don't have a ton to say about Reese Witherspoon in this movie, except that it feels like she's here from a different universe where she is just being like late

nineties, early two thousands Reese Witherspoon and everyone else is being in American psycho. At the Christmas party when she says, Merry Xmas to people very pointedly and someone's like, Merry Christmas. Like, Yeah. So they get to a restaurant and our voiceover of Bateman is I'm nearly in tears when we arrive at a spa because I'm certain we won't have a good table, but we do. A wave of relief washes over me.

And a lot of these are direct quotes from the book. That's straight from the book. Which is great, we're getting such a clear, all he wants is a good fucking table, all he wants is a reservation, all he wants is to be seen to be looking good. They get to the dinner and it's Reese Witherspoon, it's Bryce, whose plays are Justin Theroux,

Courtney, who's a womanerspoon, it's Bryce, whose plays are Justin Theroux, Courtney, who's a woman that Patrick Bateman's having an affair with, and Evelyn's cousins, which are two artists who are very out of place at this dinner. Is Lewis Carruthers there? Yes. Lewis Carruthers is there. Courtney's husband, yeah. That's Courtney's.

Courtney's fiance. Yes, we're fiance. Who Bateman hates. They, you know, somehow in conversation start talking about Sri Lanka and trying to act very superior in front of these artists. And then Bateman gives this whole monologue about all the world problems they need to solve before they can deal with Sri Lanka.

Like, equal treatment for all and equal rights for women. And we need to end homelessness. And we need to bring compassion back to the people. And Evelyn's looking at him adoringly. Lewis Carruthers is looking at him adoringly. It's this very like, again, these like very peculiar personas that he's putting out in the world as if he's this person who cares about everything,

but we can see how very empty it is. Yeah, right. He and Bryce are like playing a game with the outsiders in that moment too. Yeah, right. Like Thoreau is like, is like chortling the whole time. Mocking them, making them feel small. That night we see Patrick Greatman walking down the street alone in New York City. He finds

himself walking behind a woman and gets his pace so that they're walking exactly side by side. They stop at a stop crosswalk and she notices that he's next to her and sort of looks over nervously. He looks right at her, smiles, says hi. She says hi, looks away. And you can tell because she's noticed how handsome he is, her anxiety at a man standing next to her sort of starts to go away.

And she looks back at him again, like, okay, maybe he's cute. And light turns green, they start walking, and he's walking very deliberately right in pace with her. Smash cut. Next morning, he is at the dry cleaners with very, very bloody sheets. Again, I think this is such a brilliant interpretation of it. It's like so scary. We like feel her fear, but then she's like, maybe he's handsome and we don't need to see any violence occur to know exactly what fucking happens.

Right. So he's at the dry cleaners, he's freaking out at the owners who are speaking Chinese to him and he's talking down to them, being a complete asshole, screaming at them, calling them an idiot, like holding up these bloody sheets like, you've got to get the stains out of these sheets. And a woman that he knows from his life arrives and is like, oh, oh, Patrick, oh, isn't this the best dry cleaners? And oh my goodness, what are those stains? And he's like, cranberry juice, cran apple.

And. The cran apple clarification is so good. Yeah, the correction is nice. And she clearly is, she's looking at the stains and is like not really buying that it's cran apple, but also clearly wants to fuck Patrick. So she's sort of like, oh yeah, he's like, can you talk to them for me?

I gotta go, I gotta led to his patient. Let me take care of that for you. He's like, oh yeah, sure. Maybe we could go to lunch sometime. And he finally does leave by saying, I'll call you and she's so happy about it. Next at his apartment, Patrick is on the phone with Courtney in the background, he's watching porn.

He asked her to go to dinner with him. She only agrees when he tells her he got reservations at Dorcia. And she's like, oh, Dorcia sounds nice. So he calls Dorcia, he hangs up, calls Dorcia to make a reservation. They answer the phone and he says, hi, I know it's late, but you know, any chance you have a table for two at 830? And all we hear on the other end is, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha a table for two at 8.30? And all we hear on the other end is, ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Just cannot believe the audacity

that he would try to make a reservation for same night. He's going, thank you so much, we'll see you then. Yeah, and the cab that night, he's in the cab with Courtney and she is really fucked up. He talks earlier about how she's always on some sort of, some sort of drug tonight. I think it's Valium or something. The character of Courtney is so sad.

Yeah. I don't know why, but this was the scene where I recognized that she was in the Super Mario Brothers movie. I don't know why this was the scene where I recognized that she was Princess Daisy, but this is the scene that did it. Hey, you know what?

The brain works in interesting ways. But yeah, she's like she's slurring her speech, just kind of slumping over. We she says to him at one point, I just want a child to perfect children. They get to the table. She's like, this is Darcy. And he's like, yep, we see him open his menu and another name of a restaurant is on the menu. She's too high to notice. He orders dinner for her, like quoting an exact review

of the New York Times called it a delightful little dish. And she's like fully asleep at the table and he's just looking around smiling, proud of himself. The next morning at work at a meeting, Louis Carruthers is very complimentary of Patrick. He's like, thank you so much for taking Courtney out last night and wow, Dorcia, how did you manage it? And oh, this is a beautiful suit.

Is it Valentina? When he like goes to touch the suit and Baiman grabs his hand and is like, the compliment was sufficient. Paul Allen, a very smarmy, nasty, horrible, we hate him, Jared Leto comes up. His face, just his fucking face. Oh, everything about him, we just simply, simply hate him,

but he's hateable in this movie, so it's okay. He comes up to Patrick Bateman, and he immediately calls him Halberstam, or whatever. Marcus. Marcus Halberstam. And Patrick goes along with it. Patrick in his voiceover's like, Paul Allen thinks I'm Marcus Halberstam or whatever. Marcus. Marcus Halberstam. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Patrick goes along with it. Patrick and his voiceovers like, Paul Allen thinks I'm Marcus Halberstam,

which makes sense. We both have a pension for Valentino's suits and all over people glasses. And we can see he looks at Marcus in the room and they do look identical. Then Paul Allen walks away. Bryce comes into the room for this meeting. He asks Paul Allen if he wants to play squash sometime.

Paul gives him his business card. He says, I can't tonight, I've got reservations at Dorcia. And they're all like, wow, how do you fucking get a reservation at Dorcia? Patrick is clearly feeling very intimidated by Paul Allen. So he decides this is the moment to show his friends his new business card. So he's really, he's got this look on his face,

like he is so proud of himself. He's like, take a look at this. And he pulls it out and he shows it to his friends and they all go, look, oh wow, very nice business. It's like an off white with engraved lettering, thick business card. And they're all like, wow, very nice. What is that eggshell?

It's bone. Wow, nice business card. And Van Patten is then like, well, if you think that's good, I should take a look at this. And he pulls out his business card, puts it down. It is off-white with engraved lettering, but everyone can tell it's just a little bit nicer. Patrick's like, oh, okay, yeah, that's pretty nice.

And Bryce is like, well, you guys might want to take a look at this, because I too got a new business card. And he takes his out. It's even a little bit, even a nicer shade of off-white with even nicer engraved lettering. It's also worth noting that every single one of their cards says that they're a vice president

and they all say mergers and acquisitions. This is in the trivia, I didn't notice it in the movie, but every single acquisition is spell drawn. All of their cards have it spell drawing. It's incredible. And every logo is different. Oh yeah. The company logo, it's not a standard font. Like what?

Nothing. Yeah. No, it's just the name of a company. Yeah. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. And so then we see Bateman is absolutely simmering. His performance is just so good.

So good. Breaks into a sweat at the same moment. He's so upset that he brought out his business card. Now he's getting one up by all these. It's humiliated. He says, why don't we see Paul's card? And very begrudgingly, Bryce pulls the card out the pile and just gave him and puts it down on the table.

And they're all like, oh my God. The lighting is like claustrophobic. There's like this whooshing sound in the soundtrack. They're like all, they just cannot like get a grip at how much fucking nice Paul Allen's card is. It cannot be stressed enough that these are four substantively identical business cards. They're basically identical cards, but.

But they can tell. Yes, and they all agree without talking about it. Like what the hierarchy of business cards. Yep, yep, yep. Yep. That night we see Patrick Bateman walking down the streets of New York. He walks down an alley where he encounters a homeless man

and his dog and he leans down to him as if to offer him money. And he starts by, we think maybe being kind to him. He says, oh, it's cold. I bet you're hungry. And then he starts immediately ridiculing him. Why don't you get a job? And he says, I lost my job.

He says, drinking, insider trading, ha ha, just kidding. Oh, he's so cruel. You should get a fucking job. He has him his name and he says, Al. He's like, get a fucking job, Al. And it's just like being so, so fucking horrible to him. And then he says, you know, I I'm going to help you out. I'm going to help you out.

Oh, thank you, mister. You're so nice. You're so nice. Patrick bends down in front of him, goes into his briefcase as if to get out money or food or something. Instead, pulls out a knife, stabs him multiple times, gets up, kicks his dog multiple times. Thankfully, we are in a pretty far away zoom, but we know what's happening. It's a stomp.

I'd say more of a stomp than a kick. It's a stomp. Love to be so cucked by a business card that you just murder someone in an alley. Yeah, exactly. And I gotta say, we're not gonna get into it, but this scene in the book, 15 times worse. Much, much worse.

Oh, way worse, way worse. So bad, so bad. Because the movie knows when to cut away from someone's brain falling out of what used to be their mouth or whatever it is. Yeah, the book does not. The movie is highlighting him and his insanity, it is not highlighting what it is that he's doing.

Right, the victims, pain. Very important distinction. And I'll drop in as a side note that Henley, I think you and Henley probably stopped reading at around the same time, because she mentioned this scene as well in the book as being kind of when she started pumping the brakes. Oh, it's so awful.

And there was a, she mentioned that there was a mention of a child in a scene, not the chapter so clearly titled Killing Child at Zoo, which- Which is not in the movie. Thank God it's not in this movie. But like even just a mention of like Patrick Bateman being in the same space as a child, she was like, all right, I'm stopping. And I was like, it's good you did. It's really good that

you did. For me, it was in the book, all the mentions of offhanded animal torture, which she does a lot, a lot more of that in the book too. Anyway, forget the book. It doesn't exist. Who cares? Next day, we see Patrick getting a facial. His facialist is complimenting him on his skin. You have such beautiful skin, such nice pores. He's in the tanning bed doing his whole routine, and his voice-over says, I have all the characteristics of a human being, but not a single identifiable emotion except greed and disgust.

I think my mask of sanity is about to slip. I just got it. Like, being 30 or 40 years old, like having nice skin at 27 is not you're doing it on. You're getting a facial every day at 27. Like, excuse me. Wild stuff. Um, cut to a Christmas party where yes, Reese Witherspoon's character keeps coming through saying, right? Xmas, very Xmas. Some other guy calls Patrick, I don't know,

Smith or something, some name that's not his, doesn't matter. Evelyn comes up to him holding a baby pig, just holding a baby pig, and asks him, what do you want for Christmas, Patrick? And don't say breast implants again. Yeah, that's tough. Patrick comes up to Paul Allen,

who calls him Marcus again and is like, "'Marcus, how's it going? "'How is, what's her name? "'Cecilia, how's your girlfriend Cecilia?' And he says, "'Cecilia is fantastic.'" And he says, "'Paul, we should go to dinner. "'Let's go to dinner.'" So they make plans to go to dinner the next day.

We see Patrick arriving at the restaurant. Paul is already there and Paul's upset because the restaurant's almost empty. Like real hot spot you picked, Patrick. We should have gone to Dorcia. I could have gotten us a table. The server is holding like a big wooden board with the specials on it.

Which include mud soup and charcoal arugula. And yeah, Patrick asks Paul, he says, Paul, how'd you get the Fisher account? And he says, I could tell you Marcus, but, uh, but then I'd have to kill you. Uh, at one point Patrick looks around and he says, is that a Vaughn a Trump? Cause he's obsessed with the Trumps. Loves the Trumps. Loves the Trumps, really tough, really tough to know in this moment in time.

And he's clearly getting more and more, like his anger and hatred of Paul Allen is increasing with every minute and he keeps, Paul, have another martini, have another martini. At the dinner, while we see Paul Allen getting very fucked up, Patrick tells him, I like to dissect girls. Did you know I'm totally insane?

Goes completely over Paul's head. Allen asks him, you know, where's Cecilia tonight? Why isn't Cecilia with you? And he says, oh, she's a dinner with Evelyn. And he's, oh, Evelyn, great ass. Except she goes out with that loser, Patrick Bateman. What a loser. Smash cut, we're at Bateman's apartment.

Paul Allen, very fucking drunken out of it, is sitting on. All of Patrick's furniture is covered with sheets and drop cloths. There is newspaper all over the floor. Paul Allen's just sitting in a chair, not really noticing. Patrick puts on Huey Lewis in the News and starts waxing poetic to Paul Allen about how great Huey Lewis in the News is.

Meanwhile, putting on a big plastic raincoat, grabbing a big old ax, dancing around the apartment. Yeah, he's so gleeful. He's so excited. He's having so much fun. He ends up, he's standing behind Paul. He's got the axe. He's talking about Huey Lewis in the news

and it's, this is such a great song. And then he says, hey Paul. Paul turns his head and he raises the axe and goes, ah! And just starts axing him over and over in the face, which we don't see any of, we just cut on Christian Bale's face. Blood splatters. Yeah, you get like spray of blood.

But you can imagine the sound mixer just has his finger on the knob and he's just going up. Like the Huey Lewis intensifies, like as soon as he starts hitting him. This is a common reaction to listening to Huey Lewis in the news. As someone who listened to one of the albums as research for these podcasts. This is one of the most successful adaptations from the book for me. Because these are standalone chapters in the book. They usually occur after a big murder or transgressive act.

And then there's like this kind of... They happen three times. Who are the artists who get highlights? Huey Lewis in the news, Genesis with a focus on Phil Collins and Whitney Houston. And those are all here in the movie in different ways. They did not use the real Whitney Houston track in the movie. They use she would not let them instrumental cover. But no, like doing it, him opining like this during either the murder

or during the set up to some sort of sex crime is just very different from the book, but it allows them to like get the same point across. I did read a thing from her and where she was like, Oh yeah, I was a music writer when I was getting started and these all like were very funny to me. I read them as like good parodies of Rolling Stone writing at the time. And it does, it is very effective in that one of the scenes that hasn't happened yet in the movie, but it happens earlier in the book where he is talking about Genesis.

In the book, you have this horrifying chapter and then immediately the next chapter is just him talking about the band Genesis. And it does accomplish what Mary Heron does by putting them both together, which is just like a complete, devoid, absolutely like no emotion, thought, anything, just like a monster. And the juxtaposition, like putting them together in the movie is really, really clever and funny. It makes the movie funny. It's really funny. Yeah, it's really funny.

And Christian Bale is so funny in this scene. This is like when people dress up as Pet Bateman for Halloween, they do this. The raincoat, the axe, the bloody face. And he is really, really fucking funny in this scene. Like, I get it. But yeah, his face is like half covered in blood. His hair is all wild out as we've never seen it. Paul Allen, brutally murdered on the floor.

Patrick Bateman's smile goes away. He's suddenly like very cool, calm and collected. Sits down on his couch, lights a cigar and just sits there and smokes it. Cut to him dragging the body out through his building lobby in an overnight bag. It's leaving a trail of blood on the floor. Nobody's noticing, nobody cares.

So clearly dragging a corpse. Drags it into a cab. He's putting the bag in the trunk when Lewis Carothers stops him on the street. He sees him, he's with a cab. He's putting the bag in the trunk when Louis Carruthers stops him on the street. He sees him. He's with a woman and he's like, Oh, Patrick, what's going on? He see he looks in the trunk of the car and he goes, Patrick, where did you get that overnight bag?

And this is who he says Jean Paul Gaultier and just gets in the cab, drives away. Then see Patrick entering Paul Allen's apartment. He says he's got the keys. He took off his body and he says, there's a moment of sheer panic when I realize Paul's apartment overlooks the park and it's clearly more expensive than mine. He packs up a suitcase for Paul.

He changes his answering machine to say, hey, this is Paul Allen going to London for work for a few days. Sayonara, baby. But this is the beginning of where seeing Patrick is sort of unraveling a little bit. Having committed this murder of like a person in his life has started to unspool him slightly. We see probably a few days later, he is at work.

When Gene comes to tell him there's a detective there to see him, Detective Kimball, this is Willem Dafoe. Willem Dafoe comes into his office and he says, you know, I've been hired by Meredith, Paul Allen's fiance to look into his disappearance. Bateman is clearly a bit flustered as he lets Detective Kimball into his office. He picks up the phone to fake a phone call.

And this is the thing that does happen in the book, which is lots of them giving each other like style advice, what the rules about what you're supposed to wear with what. And so he picks up the phone and he's like, no, yes, a bold striped shirt doesn't work well with a striped tie and I always tip the stylist, always tip the stylist. And he's like just going on and on faking this phone call

as the detective enters. So finally he hangs up the phone and he asks Detective Kimball, so what's the topic of discussion? And he says, I just, I need to get some basic information about you. He asks Patrick, you know, where do you live? And he says, 81st Street Garden Building. And he says, nice. Very nice.

He asks, what did you know about Paul Allen? And Patrick says, you know, he was part of that Yale thing. And he says, I don't know what you mean, the Yale thing. You know, he basically is like, he's closeted because he's in the Yale thing. Kimball asks, where does he hang out? Harry's bar, Nell's, Four Seasons, the yacht club. He says, he has a yacht.

He says, no, he just hung out there. This scene, okay, trivia about this scene is that Mary Heron had Wilhelm Dafoe do this scene three times. One version where he was certain that Patrick Bateman killed Paul Allen. One where he was unsure. And one where he was not at all suspicious.

And then they cut all three of those versions together to give this very uncertain, you're like not really not sure. It's a really weird feeling in this scene. It's really strange. Yeah, because that's how Patrick is like, can he see me, can he not? And it really is very effective.

Also Willem Dafoe is just so fucking great. He's really good at this, yeah. It makes sense if it's like, yeah, the filmmaking is supposed to be from, obviously, Patrick's perspective, and so he're the filmmaking is like supposed to be from obviously Patrick's perspective. And so he's probably in his mind going back and forth between like, no, he doesn't think it's me and like, Oh, fuck. He thinks it's me.

Well, and what the, what the movie has done really well in carrying over from the book is the sense that we have of like, is this really happening or not? Do is he saying these things out loud or not? Like, is there actually a trail of blood behind the body bag in the hallway or not? Like for what reason are other people in this movie not seeing and responding to the same things about Patrick Bateman that we are? And the movie mostly just leaves it up to the audience to figure out for themselves, which I like and which Heron has said is intentional.

But yeah, it's really coming to bear in the scene with Willam Dafoe. They did cut my favorite line from the book, which is when he's asking like, what do you know about Paul Allen? And he says, well, he ate a balanced diet. Yeah, it's great. My one note on the movie to be put that line back in.

That night, he's in a limo, we see him pick up a sex worker on the street. He asks her to come to his apartment. She says she's not supposed to, but he's clearly offering her enough money that she says yes. He tells her, your name is Christy. You'll respond only to Christy.

And on the way back to his apartment, he makes a phone call to a call girl agency requesting another woman to come to his apartment. And he says, blonde. And I can't emphasize this enough. Blonde. So then Christy is in his back of his apartment in the bath. It is I'm like, again, it's shot. So not male gaze. Like this woman is in the bathtub and we are not like seeing her body any more than we need to. It's like, really, you can really tell

this was shot by a woman. And the sex worker arrives, he tells her he's gonna call her Sabrina, and as she comes in, she's walking down the hall and he says, not quite blonde, are you? More dirty blonde. But he tells both of the women that his name is Paul Allen,

and he puts on a Genesis record, he starts talking about Phil Collins and Genesis, all while then beginning this sex scene with them. He's like talking about Genesis, he's setting up a video camera, he's like talking about the history of the band, then he's like, Sabrina, take off your dress. So Genesis did blah, blah, blah, blah,

and then like, Christie, get on your knees, cut to Patrick having sex with both of them. And in every angle of him with these women, he's looking at himself in the mirror. He's flexing his mouth. So he's fixing his hair. He like points at himself in the mirror, just fully and exclusively obsessed with himself and how he looks in this moment. It's also interspersed with shots from his video cameras. Like whenever you get a wide shot of all the naked people, it's like the, it's not sexy.

Like it has been, they've taken great pains to be like, no, we don't need to like any of this. It's just kind of straight. At best it's funny. At worst, now you've, you watched him murder somebody the last time he started talking about how much he loved a musician. So now you're like nervous about what's going to happen. And also the song Susudio is playing,

and it's so loud and like layered over top of every other sound that's happening. This is possibly the funniest scene in this or any movie. I was laughing so hard at the Susud studio threesome scene from American Psycho. It's like so not sexy. Like it is not sexy at all. He is so weird. Like it's like really, and these women don't think it's sexy. Like you could also tell they're uncomfortable and a little unnerved and like the way he's talking to them, they don't think he's cool. They're not into this. Obviously they're hired to be here, but it's like they think he's a fucking weird freak too.

Yeah. And the laughing is all happening at Bateman's expense and everybody involved in the scene and behind the camera, they all know it, it's fully intentional and that's why it works. Yeah. There's little beats in those camera shots where he's just arbitrarily changing positions

in the bed with them. And it's so ungraceful and just kind of like, I don't know, I'm moving over here. It's just like, nobody is comfortable in this, but they're all just like, okay, weird guy. He just like wants to see a different angle of his own muscles. Yep.

But you know, it's just a sex scene, right? Like that's all that happens. Cut to evening, they're all laying in bed, they're like sleeping in bed. He gets up out of bed and Christie says like, okay, can we leave now? And we see him open a drawer filled with various knives and weapons.

He picks up a wire hanger and he turns and he says, we're not done yet. Cut to both women leaving with various injuries. We don't really see entirely, but scratches bloodied. They're crying, shaken. He's handing them big wads of cash and they are running out the door. This is about when I stopped reading after that scene.

I was like, yeah, I'm done. Yeah. Abrupt cut to Bateman at a bar with as many works with, and they're saying, you know, if she has a great personality, but she's not great looking, then who fucking cares? And Bateman says, well, hypothetically, what if she does have a great personality?

Pause, they all look around. Ha ha ha ha ha. What are we talking about? They say, I know, I know all in unison. There are no girls with great personality. And they high five each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. High five. God. And this is where Patrick says,

do you know what Ed Gaines said about women? And they're like, Ed Gaines, who works in the broker, whatever. And he's like, no, the serial killer. He said, when I meet a great looking girl, I have two thoughts. One, I wanna take her out, I wanna show her a nice time, I wanna really, really enjoy her company. And they're like, yeah, what's the other thought?

How her head would look on a stick. And he really laughs and they're sort of like, laughs and laughs. What? But again, not really, they're just sort of like, laughs and laughs. What? But again, not really, they're just sort of like, okay, weirdo. Just then Lewis Crothers comes over, so excited he says, I wanted to show you guys,

I got a new business card. Uh-oh. And he takes it out and he shows them and they all. God, Josh Lucas in this scene has the funniest expression. He's so good in this scene. He like looks over and he's like, and they're like, this is very nice, this is very nice. And Patrick breaks into a sweat, absolutely livid.

Lewis Carruthers walks away, presumably goes into the restroom. We see Bateman get up. He's so fucking mad. He can't believe it is for nice, press this card, goes into the bathroom. We see him come in with gloved hands. We see Lewis Carruthers at a urinal

and Patrick comes up behind him, puts his arms around his throat, goes to squeeze. Lewis turns around shocked, looks at him, grabs his hand, kisses his wrist and says, Patrick, why here? Patrick is too shocked to do anything. And he's just sort of like, while Lewis is saying like, I've wanted you for so long.

I'm so glad you want me to. Patrick absolutely freaks the fuck out, runs over, washes his gloved hands in the sink, runs out, Lewis catches his eye and says, Patrick, I'll call you. Patrick runs back to the office. Back at the office, Detective Kimball is there to see him again, and he's wanting to know where Patrick was the night of Paul Allen's disappearance.

He says, I guess I was probably returning videotapes, which he's always doing. He's always doing this. He looks at his date book and he says, I was on a date with a girl named Veronica. And Kimball says, That's not the info I have. And Patrick's like, what info do you have? And he's like, sorry, long day spent. And Kimball says, you know, me too. Why don't we have lunch in a week?

And do me a favor. And if you could try to pin down where you were the night of Paul and his disappearance, that'd be really helpful. And he's like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And as he's leaving, Kimball pulls out. He just bought the new Huey Lewis and the new helpful. And he's like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And as he's leaving, Kimball pulls out, he just bought the new Huey Lewis and the new CD and he's showing Patrick, he's like, Huey Lewis,

you like him? We're pretty great. And Patrick says, I don't really like singers. When he says singers. Singers. I don't really like singers. Next day, we see him. Patrick is fucking Courtney. And afterwards, he's

like getting up to leave, looking at himself in the mirror, really treating her like shit. She is so clearly in love with him and he is just completely dismissing her. The next night, he and Bryce are at the club doing coke

in the bathroom. Bryce is saying he's like, I just heard, you know, if you can get AIDS from having sex with someone, you could catch anything, you know? Dyslexia, any virus. And Patrick's like, I'm pretty sure dyslexia's not a virus. Later they're talking to a group of women. One of the women asks Patrick what he does,

and he says, I'm into murders and executions. She says, do you like it? And he says, well, it depends, what do you mean? And she says, well, just most of the men I know who work in mergers and acquisitions really hate it. And he's like, right, yep. They're leaving together, getting into a cab and she tells him, I know you think I'm dumb.

And he says, I don't think you're dumb. She says, yeah, you think all models are dumb, but I don't mind because there's something sweet about you. Get into a cab together, hard cut next morning, he's in his office, just twirling a lock of blonde hair. He's also doing a crossword. We looked on the crossword and in every single category, he's putting meat, bones, meat, bones.

We haven't seen the clues. We don't know. Like he might be doing it right. He might be doing it right. It could be the right answer. Could it be a full crossword of meat and bones? It's a slumdog millionaire moment. It's like tailored just for him.

The real American psycho is whoever did the New York Times crossword. Will Short? Yeah. Yeah. American psycho is whoever did the New York Times crossword. Uh, Jean comes in and he asks her if she wants to go to dinner that night. He's being wild in this scene. Like real top, this is Nicholas Cage in memories. Cause this is Tom Cruise dead behind the eyes on David Letterman. He's wearing sunglasses.

He's being very like silly. He is very silly. Very silly, very happy. And he asks, Gene, you want to go to dinner tonight, Gene? And she, of course, is thrilled to be asked to go to dinner with him. And he says, where do you want to go? I can get us in anywhere.

And she's like, well, I guess maybe Dorcia. And his demeanor shifts a little bit where he goes, so Gene wants to go to Dorcia. She's like, no, no, I'll go anywhere. He's like, no, that's fine. We could go to Dorcia. He calls them and they say, Dorcia, yes. He says, ah yeah, can I get a table tonight at 9 p.m. for two people? And they're like, no, we're fully booked. Great, 9 p.m. for two. Thanks, see you then. Hangs up. She sort of like looks at him strangely and says, what? She says, you didn't give then. Hangs up, she sort of like looks at him strangely

and says, what? She says, you didn't give a name. He says, it's fine, they know me. My place at 7 p.m. for drinks. And she is absolutely thrilled. And on her way out the door, he says, and Jean, you're gonna change before we go out, right? Cut to his apartment, she has changed.

She's wearing a little dress. He opens his freezer to offer her sorbet, which is a very strange thing to offer. And it's strange also how much she's like, oh my God, yes, like I would love some sorbet. Thank you so much. There's a lot of sorbet talk in the novel. I feel like it's like a trendy late 80s thing.

It's like the sushi thing, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So he offers her sorbet. We see, oh, he opens the freezer. We see the model from the other scene, head in a bag in the freezer. Jean sit on the couch eating her sorbet. Patrick is talking to her. His performance, and I mean, I know his performance is so good,

but his performance in this scene is so good because you can tell he doesn't know what he wants to happen. Like he's floating back and forth between being like the giddy guy he is right before he murders someone to being stressed about, is he really gonna murder her? Is he actually trying to communicate, connect with someone? Like it's like the way he's constantly shifting in this scene is so, so good.

And that's like, that's kind of in the book too. Gene is a character that I feel like he does almost have the closest feeling for maybe a little bit because she's like outside of his world of people and brand names and she's like the only one that seems like an actual person. And so he sees her as like a little, maybe fantasizes a bit about like, is this my key to having a normal life? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The book, the book gets into that a little bit more, like not, not a ton, but there is a part toward the end, like explicitly where he's like, I could, this is as close as I come to feeling what you would recognize as a regular human emotion about something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But he's like, he's talking to Jean and we see him, he's sort of browsing his various weapons. He opens a knife drawer, he's got his finger on a butcher knife.

We see his like tool shed type thing. Can't really land on anything. He, she asks him, what do you really want out of life? She's not looking at him this whole time. He comes up behind her. We see he has a big old nail gun. He comes up behind her. He's holding it right up to the back of her head.

And he says, I guess I just want to have a meaningful relationship with someone special. Just then his phone rings and it goes to voicemail and it is Evelyn leaving him him a voicemail very like, Patrick, you know, you're my guy. And where are you? Answer the phone, you silly guy. And just like really very girlfriendy voicemail.

They both hear it. It sort of stops him. He puts the nail gun down. He sits back down with her. It's like very rigid. All of a sudden she is misinterpreting this as like, oh, we're, you know, he's feeling guilty about maybe cheating on his girlfriend. She asks him, should I go? And he says, do you want to go? And she says, I always get

involved with the wrong guy. And he's like, yeah, I think if you stay, I might hurt you. So you should probably go. And so she does eventually start walking out the door. As she's leaving, she turns, because she is still his secretary. She says, don't forget, you have a lunch tomorrow with Detective Kimball. And he says, thanks. It completely slipped my mind.

So next day he's at lunch with Kimball. They're talking, He's sweaty. We see him pour like the entire container of salt on his steak. He just like, it's just pour so much salt on cause he's just totally freaking out. Heron called that out as a moment where Bale in his performance, he watched Defoe put salt on his food and then was like, I guess I, I guess we sold our food. I guess it's like normal people those salt shakers that like the holes must be huge. Like so much salt comes out. It would be absolutely disgusting to eat it. But he's just like, being a

human. And Kimball is asking him once again, where were you denied of Paul's disappearance? And he says, probably took a shower, had a sorbet. And he says, so I saw that, that, you know, Paul's date book said he had a dinner with Marcus Halberstram on the night of his disappearance. And I checked with Marcus and he has an alibi and he's like, Oh, what was he doing? And he says, well, the night of Paul's disappearance, he was at Atlantis with Bryce, Van Patten, and you. And it's a real fewth moment where Patrick goes, oh, right, yeah, I guess I was at the club that night.

And Kimball's like, yeah, case closed. He's probably just off in London. Who really cares? And they're like, haha, yeah, everything is totally, totally fine. Just normal stuff, yep. Just normal stuff because nobody knows who anybody is and nobody has any idea what's going on ever

and it's all good. That night, Patrick's back to feeling himself. He pulls up in his limo once again to Christy, who is, God, this scene is devastating. She's very hesitant to get in the limo with him because of what happened before. She tells him, I don't know, last time I had to go to the emergency room,

my friend told me I should get a lawyer. And he's like, you don't have to do any of that. Come on, this is gonna be nothing like last time. She clearly is nervous. She clearly doesn't want to, but he is offering her so much money that she does eventually accept, goes home with him. This time they go to Paul Allen's apartment.

She does remark when she enters, this is nicer than your last apartment. He's like, it's not that much nicer. Yeah, it's not that nice. It's not that nice. And now he is there with his friend, Elizabeth. This is played by Gwinniver Turner, co-writer. She clearly thinks that Christie is like one of them.

It's so uncomfortable. She's asking Christie, what do you do? And do you summer in Southampton? And Christie's just sort of not responsive. We see Patrick spike the wine that they are both drinking. Eventually he says, you know, you guys should, I think you guys should hook up. And at first, Elizabeth's like, Patrick,

oh, don't be lewd. Kat too, of course they are should hook up. And at first, Elizabeth's like, Patrick, don't be lewd. Cut to, of course, they are hooking up. And Patrick is talking to them about Whitney Houston. And he's playing not actually Whitney Houston, but an instrumental cover of Whitney Houston. And they're sort of laughing. Oh my gosh, you like Whitney Houston. That's so funny.

Cut to them in bed. Patrick is going down on Elizabeth and Christie seizes this opportunity to try to sneak out. Smart. Very smart. This is also like an addition. Like I feel like that doesn't happen in the book. And I imagine that they like wanted to add a scene

where it seemed like one of the- What a woman would have done. Yes, like would have been trying to escape at any moment. The ending of this particular episode in the book is way worse and way terrible and we don't need to talk about it. Yes. Great, we won't. So, you know, Christie's seeing this moment where Patrick is distracted and she's like,

great, I'm gonna try to sneak out. She's so good in this too. She's crazy. She's great. Kara Seymour, she like is incredible in this. She's trying to like very quietly, discreetly grab her things. We just see Patrick under a sheet with Elizabeth. We hear her sort of moaning and the moans turn to screams.

Christy realizes this, looks over, and we just see blood pooling on the sheets. So Christy's like, fuck this, I'm not grabbing my stuff, starts to run, Patrick lifts his head out, his face is covered in blood, he sees Christie leaving, gets up to go after her. But like face and teeth, he's like been biting. Oh, he's absolutely been biting her to death, yeah.

So, Christie starts running, but this apartment is like a maze, it's dark, she's freaked out, she doesn't know where she's going, she heads to a door, opens it, it is in fact a closet, filled with women's bodies, she screams, runs into another room. It's a second bedroom. Women's bodies piled in there full of blood. The wall says, yuppie scum painted on it.

Die, die yuppie scum. Thank you. Runs into the bathroom. There's a woman in the bathtub on the floor, bloody. Patrick comes in after her. He starts biting her leg. She manages to kick him off, kicks him in the face. He's so mad she would dare touch his face.

So mad about it. She manages finally to get, and again, I should point out, she is wearing like a nightie in this. She is not naked. We're not getting gratuitous female nudity. Important to call out. She finally gets out. She's running down the hall, screaming, banging on doors, no one's coming.

We see Patrick run out, he is naked, covered in blood, naked except for sneakers. Bright white. Bright white sneakers, holding a chainsaw, running after her. Apparently he did stay nude between takes for this, except for the sneakers, and he just put a sock over his penis.

Okay. He's so committed. Okay. So committed. So committed. He is running after her. She's screaming. She manages to get into the stairwell and is now running down the stairs, but you better believe it's one of those circular stairwells.

So the whole way she's running down the stairs, him from above, he can see her and he's holding the chainsaw and we see him sort of like following her movements with this chainsaw. Finally she makes it to the bottom floor and as she's running out just in that moment, he drops the chainsaw, it impales her on the ground, kills her and he screams and laughs and that's that. This is another scene where it's like feels like, okay, is this really happening because he's running naked down halls screaming with the chainsaw in like a full apartment building and seems unlikely that any nobody would notice a building that seems both empty and full.

Yeah, like it really starts to beg, like, what is really going on? Right? Because she yeah, she pounds on apartment doors and there's just nobody else in this allegedly very fancy, desirable apartment building who's around to like hear her screaming. Yeah. And then it continues to do the juxtaposition of like the horrible and the banal stuff that it does during like the Huey Lewis and Susudio scenes where he does react to dropping a chainsaw on a woman from 10 floors up,

the way that you would react if you like got a crumpled up paper ball into a waste basket from far away or something. Yeah. He's like really, really fucking pumped. Yeah. Cut to he's drawing that exact scene with crayons on the tablecloth at a restaurant out to lunch with Evelyn, and he's dumping her.

She can't believe it, she's crying, she's making a scene. He really hates that she's making a scene. He says, you're not terribly important to me. Yeah, he says, Evelyn, I'm sorry, you're just not terribly important to me. So brutal. And so he gets up to leave because he doesn't like that she's making a scene,

and she's like, where are you going, Patrick? Where are you going? He says, I have to return some video tapes. That night we see him at an ATM and he's going to get out some money and we hear a little kitten meowing at his feet. And then he looks at the ATM and it says, feed me a stray kitten.

So he picks the cat up and he takes a gun out and he holds a gun to the kitten's head. A woman sees him and it's, oh my God, what are you doing? So instead he shoots the woman. We hear police sirens. He starts running, running down the street, running from these cops. Eventually they get him cornered in an alley.

It's a shootout. They're shooting at him. He's shooting at them. He manages to shoot the cars. They explode, killing all the police officers, still runs, he runs into an office building where the security guard says, hi Scott, burning the midnight oil, shoots him, he's going to run out of the building, and he gets, he goes through a revolving door at the other end and notices a janitor's inside

the building, so he goes around the revolving door, comes back in, shoots the janitor, goes back out through the revolving door. Very funny in, shoots the janitor, goes back out through the revolving door. Yeah, pretty funny. Very funny. Got runs into another completely identical looking office building. Presumably this one is actually his office building. There's a security guard there and he does, he like pulls out what we think is going to be a gun.

It's a pen, he signs himself in. Again, look at all sweaty and crazy. Goes up to his office, is hiding from the cops. There's like searchlights going, you can hear the helicopters, gets up to his office, is hiding from the cops, there's like searchlights going, you can hear the helicopters, gets down behind his desk, picks up the phone, calls his lawyer, Howard, it's Bateman, Patrick Bateman, you're my lawyer so I think you should know,

I've killed a lot of people, some girls in an apartment uptown, some homeless people, maybe five or 10, an NYU girl I met in Central Park, I left her body at a parking lot behind a donut shop. I killed Bethany, my old girlfriend, with a nail gun. This man with a dog last week. I killed another girl with a chainsaw I had.

She almost got away and there's someone else there I can't remember, maybe a model, but she's dead too. And Paul Allen, I killed Paul Allen with an ax in the face. His body is dissolving in a bathtub in Hell's Kitchen. I don't want to leave anything out here. I guess I've killed maybe 20 people, maybe 40. I have tapes of it. Some of the girls have seen the tapes.

I even ate some of their brains. I tried to cook a little. Tonight I just had to kill a lot of people and I'm not sure I'm gonna get away with it this time. I guess, I mean, I guess I'm a pretty sick guy. So if you get this tomorrow, I may show up at Harry's bar. So, um, keep your eyes open. Incredible performance.

Yeah, I know this is all very good. So sweaty, absolutely freaking out. Apparently they had him do this like 15 times because he kept getting more and more flustered as it went on and they were like, yes, yes, keep going. Keep going, keep going. It's just getting better and better. Cut to it's the morning. We don't know if it's the next day or some days later.

And he's doing his morning routine. He's in the shower, he's got his brush. He's looking perfect again. We see him show up at Paul Allen's apartment. He puts on a little face mask to enter. He walks in and it's pristine. It's in fact freshly painted. There's drop claws everywhere, fresh white paint

everywhere in the walls. There's a real estate agent in there talking to a couple. He's walking around very confused. He goes over to the closet, opens it. The closet we had seen women's bodies in and it is freshly painted. We see buckets of paint in there. The real estate agent comes up behind him and says,

hi, are you my two o'clock? And he says, no, doesn't Paul Allen live here? And she's immediately like, no, no, he doesn't. Did you see our listing in the times? And he's like, yeah, yep, saw it in the times. She said, there was no listing in the times. I think you, uh, yeah, yep. Saw it in the times. She said, there was no listing in the times. I think you need to go. Got him.

She says, and don't come back here. And he's like, I won't. He's very flustered and he leaves. Outside, he's freaking out. He calls, he gets to a payphone. He calls Jean, we see him down a whole bottle of pills. He's like chewing them, like crunching on some pills. He calls Jean, he's like down a whole bottle of pills. He's like chewing them, like crunching on some pills. He calls Jean, he's like,

Jean, I need help. And she's like, Patrick, what's going on? I can't hear you. I don't think I'm gonna make it to the office this afternoon. She's like, Patrick, Patrick, what's going on? He's like, stop being so fucking sad. Hangs up on her. She's like very, being so fucking sad. Hangs up on her. She's like very, very thrown by this.

So we see her go into his office, look around, she opens the store, she pulls out his date book, sits at his desk, opens it, starts leafing through it. And we see there are no appointments, there's no work in there. Every now and again is scribbled like a name. And she starts seeing sketches in there. Horrifying sketches, the last thing you'd ever want to see.

Really detailed drawings of women being named and murdered in disgusting ways. But also like a perfect way to do this because that's all you need is a little glance. All you need. The book is the story of each of those murders in extreme detail. In detail, in gruesome detail.

And it is really fucking gnarly, the sketches she's seeing. And she's like tearing up. She's leaving. I mean, she is rightfully horrified. And at this point, the movie has given you so few people responding to him, the way that you would expect someone to respond to him. That it's a little bit of a breath of fresh air to see somebody like have a rational reaction to the actions of Patrick Bateman.

And it's smart to have it done through Jean, I think. Yeah. And in all of the scenes you've just recounted, Emily, like there's this growing sense and it's going to level up in the next scene where he's just like, what is happening? And you, the viewer are going, what has been happening? Yeah. And you can, at that moment, decide that a lot of this movie didn't quote unquote happen. And you can still have Gene find a terrifying notebook of woman murder in it. And like, it's still be a true human moment, which is really effective. Right. And it, yeah, not being obviously him like caught

in the act of doing something. It's like in his mind, this is what he's thinking about and doodling in his journal. And you don't need to spend like 150 pages describing all of those things. Nope, no, no, you don't. Nope. You really don't.

You could, you could. You shouldn't. One could, one could. An American psycho could. Wish you hadn't. We see him show up at Harry's bar where the usual crew's sitting at a table ready to see him. He's very sweaty and they're like,

whoa, you're looking pretty wide eyed, rough day at the office. And he's like, ha ha. They're talking about where they're gonna go to dinner that night. And he says, I'm not going anywhere without a reservation. He then looks over and he sees his lawyer talking to somebody else at the bar and he goes over to him and he says, did you get my call? And he says, oh, that was you wasn't

it? God, that was funny. Bateman killing Paul Allen. I mean, can you even imagine? He says, Davis, that joke was so funny. He says, but your failing was, he said it was Bateman. I mean, Bateman is such a spineless dork. I mean, my God. And Patrick is like, I'm Patrick Bateman. It's me, you're my lawyer. Don't you recognize me?

We've talked for years. I'm Patrick Bateman. The whole message I left was true. Look, listen, very carefully. I killed Paul Allen and I liked it. I can't make myself any clearer. At this, the lawyer is finally like, you know what? I don't like this joke anymore. That's simply not possible. And I don't find it funny. Patrick's like, it's not supposed to be funny. And why don't find it funny. Patrick's like, it's not supposed to be funny.

And why don't you believe it? And he says, it's not possible. Why isn't it possible? Because it's not. Then tell me. I had dinner with Paul Allen twice in London last week. And Patrick's like, what? And the lawyer is like, I don't find this funny.

And that's the end of that. And just walks away. Patrick's like, the fuck? What the? What the? Okay. Sits back down to the table with his friends. They're watching Reagan on the news.

Talk about the crisis in Iran. Really unfortunate timing. And we see Patrick sitting in front of a door that just says, this is not an exit. And now we're panning through the bar. We're seeing all these men who look just like Patrick, all of them in their suits, all of them their fancy hair drinking their drinks,

we get voiceover from Patrick. 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. 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, there is no catharsis. My punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing. Close up on Patrick's eyes.

The end of the movie. Perfect. Didn't know I wanted it as a one woman show. The story of American Psycho, so I appreciate your dramatic reading of the, of many of the scenes. My pleasure, my pleasure. What do you guys reading of the many of the of my pleasure. What do you guys think of the lawyers delivery in that scene?

Like, I've watched the movie twice now. I watched it again this morning. There is an like it is a bit of a Rorschach test, I think, because you can watch that scene and be like, oh, that guy knows that he had dinner with Paul Allen for real, for real, and wants this guy to shut up. You also have the version where he's like, I don't like this. I thought I had dinner with Paul Allen. Right. Is the Paul Allen dead now? I'm leaving. And it's like it's a pretty masterful little snippet of the movie, I think.

I think it's like, yeah, to me, it is another example of how no one in this world wants to see past what they're being presented with. Right. Yeah. But like, I have my belief about how things are and it's working for me. And so if you're trying to give me a different, uglier picture, you can go away. I honestly feel similarly about, this movie does such a good job of being like, what's real, what happened, what didn't. I don't want a version of this where he didn't actually,

like I think like he did definitely kill people. How many he did or in what circumstances, I do think I like that at the end, like he is clearly starting to unravel his grip on reality is shifting. So perhaps some of those end murders didn't quite happen the way we're seeing in his eyes or whatever. But I do think there's a world of like,

all of these people are so incentivized to continue taking the world at face value as it is offered to them because it's benefiting them. So it's less that these things aren't really happening and more that they are incentivized to continue going along with the facade. Like even the real estate agent, I'm like, why did they repaint that whole place? Why was she like, I think you should go now. Like it behooves her to be able to sell this apartment and not have any sort of insane backstory

about what might've been found there. Yeah, the Bateman murders or whatever, reducing the market value. The world is disincentivized to hold him accountable, is not what you're talking about. Yeah, and every attempt that he has of like trying to be seen, people are like, can you stop? Like, I don't like, I don't wanna know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like to take those, especially those two scenes, the lawyer scene and the real estate agent scene and similar deal where they do, they are like actively, they know that something happened and they're trying to steer around it in some way. I like to think of it as if there is some kind of, you know, a Groundhog Day-esque unexplained higher power

that is punishing Patrick Fateman in some way. And these characters are that powers agents in this world that's like, I see you, I see you trying to get noticed, and I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna let you be noticed. Yeah, your punishment is your existence, because it is a punishment for him. Yeah.

There are also two of the few scenes where he doesn't have control. Like, there are not very many scenes we see where he is not the one in control. It's like little moments here and there, but those are like two explicit scenes where he is not driving the bus. It's really interesting to watch. And also the like ending scene,

having a like final reiteration of like, Patrick Bateman's like a huge loser dork. Yeah, everybody hates Patrick Bateman. Yeah. So not only are we not acknowledging you and the things that you're saying, we're like keeping you in our minds as just like this big loser. Yeah. Despite everything, your apartment's not nice enough.

Like you're a loser. You're not successful. Your business card sucks. Like all he wants is to conform. Yeah. Yeah. Just want to fit in. Number one motivation. And he is, I want to fit in when anyone is noticing him specifically

at all, instead of just like confusing him with one of like three dozen other identical business guys, it's to say that he sucks. And maybe they're all, maybe this is how they all talk about each other behind their backs. Like it probably is honestly, but it is exactly what he doesn't want to hear in these, in these moments is like, yes, you have been seen and it's because everybody thinks you're a big loser. Everybody thinks you suck. Yeah. I want to harp on this, but it is so much easier to have this thematic conversation after watching the movie than it is after reading the book. Like there's so many obstacles to getting to this level of discussion about the story,

for me anyway, with the book, because you're reading it and you're like just so off put by his decisions about taste and what to depict, that it like, for me as a reader, it made it hard. I can think about how all of the things we've just said apply directly to the book and it like enriches the book for me, but I don't need to read any of the stuff, particularly in the middle of that book ever again. And it's like, I'll just think about the movie instead. Yeah. The movie does it extremely effectively. And

it is like, this is better. This is all that needs to be done here. And again, if the movie lasted for eight hours and even, even if it was like a really clever eight hours, like it would still be way too long. So that's part of, you know, that's part of the book's original sin too. It's just like too much. They've announced a new one. Yeah. Yes. With Luca.

Guadagnino. Guadagnino. I also know that there is a sequel, like a direct to video style sequel called American Psycho 2. Oh, with Mila Kunis. With Mila Kunis and William Shatner in it. Like a Boston legal era William Shatner.

I'm kind of curious. Yeah, I know. Directed by Morgan J. Freeman. Not Morgan Freeman, just some other person named Morgan Freeman. That's like, there's like a Paul Thomas. Anderton? Anderton?

No, it's Anderson, but there's like an additional middle name. Paul W.A. Anderson. It's a very like, Union says I need to use my middle initial kind of name.A. Anderson. It's a very like, Union says I need to use my middle initial kind of name. Yeah. Huh. I am, I'm definitely intrigued by the Guadagnino version. I do think this is a, this movie is a, it is maybe all we ever needed, but I would be

curious to see a 2025 take on it. It's just so relevant. It's just so relevant. It's unfortunately very relevant. It's really relevant, but also we've been bathing for like two and a half decades in this like sort of anti-hero wave where we need to see the motivations. We need to see the thing that humanizes them.

Like can a new adaptation avoid doing that? And also like recognize new adaptation avoid doing that? And also like recognize that like not doing that was part of the point of the original work. I don't know if that's possible or not. I do as much as I do think this should only be done by a woman. I trust Luca. I do. I like Lucas takes on masculinity. I think that they I do think that it could be could be done, but it's certainly nerve wracking. Maybe it'll be another 10 year process

like it was the first time. Yeah, true. So who knows? And like really big shoes to fill on the acting side for sure. So I'm curious. Patrick Schwarzenegger did express interest. He did, he did.

Look, I'm curious, but I do not think, I mean, I don't know that anybody has the chops of Bale. So we'll see. It's tough, because it's like, the movie's basically perfect. It's basically perfect. Pretty much the only person on the list of actors that you named who I'd be even a little interested

in seeing is actually Billy Crudup, who was the one who was like, I'm not up for this actually. Maybe that's, maybe that's why I want to see him is cause he's the only one who seems self aware enough to bring anything to it. Yeah. Well, we did it. Yeah, we did it. We did it. American Psycho is behind all of us. I'm very happy for us until the new movie comes out. Yeah. until then, then we'll rejoin for that. Craig, Andrew, will you please tell our listeners more about Overdue or anything else where they could find you?

Sure. Andrew, we do a weekly book podcast for each week. It's true. We tell each other about a book that we just read that we haven't read before. We also do some long read projects. We just recently did the Iliad. Yeah, the Emily Wilson translation of it. And we are just wrapping up the book.

We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast.

We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. We're going to be doing a weekly book podcast. read before. more about our show, where do they go? A lot of other links. Thanks for doing this y'all. Thanks for having us on our show. Thanks for having us on your show and coming on our show. It ended up being a really cathartic experience for me. I feel like really accomplished something and I can put have wanted to be in there by myself. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's not right to do to a person.

And I'm well, and I'm sorry to have done it to all of you, but at least at least we can share the, yeah, share the feelings. Exactly. Yes. Well, we usually end the podcast on a voice. Of course it has to be Patrick Bateman. Okay, let's see. of course, it has to be Patrick Bateman. Okay, let's see. I want to fit in from all of us here at Too Scary Didn't Watch. Goodbye. We did it. We made it. Thank you all for listening to another

episode of Too Scary Didn't Watch. If you enjoy the show, please remember to subscribe and rate us on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Five stars only or we will haunt you. And if you simply can't get enough of us, we have good news for you. We have lots of bonus content available on our Patreon at patreon.com slash TSDW podcast. You'll get access to video trailer reactions, two bonus episodes a month, the power to vote for upcoming episodes and more. And last but not least, you can follow us on social media at TSTW Podcast.

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