Patrick Bateman

Villains Beginning With 'P'

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American Psycho film (2000),
created by the author Bret Easton Ellis,
American Psycho (1991)

Patrick Bateman is a wealthy young investment banker from Manhattan living in the late 1980s. Bateman is a 26 years old serial-killer, though the reliability is intentionally ambiguous.

Having graduated at Philips Exeter Academy and Harvard (class of '84), Bateman comes from a privileged background. He works as a Vice President at a fictional Wall Street investment bank, Pierce & Pierce, and lives in an expensive Manhattan apartment on the Upper West Side. He embodies the 1980s yuppie culture. Through the stream-of-consciousness narrative he describes his conversations with colleagues in bars and cafes, his office, and nightclubs, satirizing the vanity of Manhattan yuppies.

Bateman's narrative revolves around his murderous activities and includes renting and returning video tapes, reservations at trendy restaurants, the pursuit of cocaine in dance clubs, dates with various women, rivalries with colleagues, parties with vacuous associates, avoiding Luis (a closeted homosexual colleague of Bateman's who confesses his secret love for him), and pointless disputes at restaurants and bars over pop culture and fashion trivia.

Bateman dates several women besides his fiancée Evelyn, though without any deep feelings for anyone. He frequently solicits sex with attractive women (or 'hard bodies'). He spends excessive time on his appearance, and persistently tries to outclass his colleagues, though the only significant difference between him and them is his preoccupation with criminal acts of rape, torture and murder. Bateman's serial killer interests are the subject of popular derision from his workmates and male friends, who view this interest as a macabre specialty hobby sideline, rather than as a sign that Bateman is a psychopathic serial killer.

In the end, Bateman descends into despair as he ponders the futility of his actions. He cannot convince his own attorney of his murderous nature, and receives taunts for making up an unbelievable and absurd story. It still remains unclear whether his crimes were real or imaginary.

Bateman is said to have tortured and killed both people and animals; most notably several attractive women, among them his ex-girlfriend Bethany, a prostitute, and various sexual partners he picks up; as well as many acquaintances, colleagues, homeless beggars, total strangers, and even a five-year old child. Bateman is incredibly sadistic, recording his victims' pleas for mercy and deliberately keeping them alive and conscious in order to inflict more pain on them; he takes perverse pleasure in butchering and defiling their bodies, keeping various "trophies" and having sex with the corpses, sometimes only their heads. Bateman, at various points in the book, practices cannibalism, eating raw and cooked portions of his victims.

Bateman is suspicious and jealous by nature; he becomes especially intrigued by a colleague, the smug, successful Paul Owen (Paul Allen in the film), who is handling one of the firm's most prestigious accounts and can easily acquire reservations at Dorsia, the trendiest restaurant in the city. Bateman takes Paul to dinner (using the name of a colleague on the reservation), where he gets him drunk, before leading him back to his apartment, and then killing him with an axe.

On first appearance, Bateman exemplifies the image of the successful Manhattan executive; he is well-educated, wealthy, unusually popular with women, abreast of cultural trends, belongs to a prominent family, has a high-paying job, and lives in an upscale, chic apartment complex. Bateman passes for a refined, intelligent, thoughtful young man. Yet, contrary to his persona, he murders and tortures victims, practices violent sex, cannibalizes victims, and sexually penetrates body parts of corpses.

Bateman is extremely style-conscious, and appears an expert in fashion and high-end consumer products.

Due to Bateman's state of mind it remains a mystery as to whether he committed his crimes or if they are purely a figment of his imagination....You decide!

SUMMARY

ARCH RIVAL :	He doesn't seem to have a set pattern of victims, he tends to kill at random.
STRENGTHS :	Wealthy, successful, and good looking.
WEAKNESSES :	Over achiever and jealous as hell of anyone else doing or having anything better than himself.
WEAPONS :	Knives, chainsaw, wooden boards, nail gun, guns, axe.
QUOTE :