Highest-Rated Movies about 'Serial Killing'

The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Natural Born Killers (1994), Haute tension (2003), Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006), May (2002), Secret Window (2004), Maniac (1980) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Serial Killing movies.

#1. The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955)

Storyline: With a strange and powerful obsession stemming from a pampered childhood during the tumultuous years of the Mexican Revolution, the affluent bachelor and suave ceramist, Archibaldo de la Cruz, oscillates effortlessly between fantasy and reality, desire and hallucination. Compelled to taste again and again the delicious fruit of depravity that triggers an intense dark satisfaction, Archibaldo won't shy away from using one of his many shave-ready straight razors, bent on going to great lengths to quench his lust. Undoubtedly, death encircles the scheming Archibaldo, and the targets are always innocent women; however, is he truly capable of murder?—Nick Riganas

Plot Keywords: dark comedy, confession, music box, black comedy, mexican revolution, wealthy man, childhood memory ...

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#2. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Storyline: On Elm Street, Nancy Thompson and a group of her friends (comprising Tina Gray, Rod Lane and Glen Lantz) are being tormented by a clawed killer in their dreams named Fred Krueger. Nancy must think quickly, as Fred tries to pick them off one by one. When he has you in your sleep, who is there to save you?

Plot Keywords: slasher, serial killer, slasher flick, american horror, first of series, murder, sleep deprivation ...

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#3. Natural Born Killers (1994)

Storyline: Mickey Knox and Mallory Wilson aren't your typical lovers - after killing her abusive father, they go on a road trip where, every time they stop somewhere, they kill pretty well everyone around them. They do however leave one person alive at every shootout to tell the story and they soon become a media sensation thanks to sensationalized reporting. Told in a highly visual style.

Plot Keywords: media, satire, controversy, black comedy, murder, television, pop culture ...

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#4. Haute tension (2003)

Storyline: Alexia travels with her friend Marie to spend a couple of days with her family in their farm in the country. They arrive late and they are welcomed by Alexia's father. Late in the night, a sadistic and sick killer breaks into the farmhouse, slaughters Alexia's family--including their dog--and kidnaps Alexia. Marie hides from the criminal and tries to help the hysterical and frightened Alexia, chase the maniac, and disclose his identity in the end.

Plot Keywords: serial killer, straight razor, slasher, farmhouse, serial murderer, female serial killer, blood spatter ...

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#6. May (2002)

Storyline: When May was a child, she was a lonely girl with a lazy eye and without any friends except a weird and ugly doll kept in a glass case given by her bizarre mother on her birthday. May becomes a lonely, weird young woman, working in an animal hospital and assisting the veterinarian in surgeries and sewing operated animals most of the time. Her lesbian colleague Polly has a sort of attraction for her. When the shy May meets the mechanic Adam Stubbs, she loves his hands and has a crush on him. They date, but the weirdness and bizarre behavior of May pushes Adam away from her. Alone, May has a brief affair with Polly, but she feels rejected again when her colleague meets Ambrosia. When her doll is accidentally broken, the deranged May decides to build a friend for her, using the best parts her acquaintances can offer.

Plot Keywords: imaginary friend, mental illness, black humor, slasher flick, mother daughter relationship, childhood trauma, psychopath ...

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#7. Secret Window (2004)

Storyline: Mort Rainey is a successful writer going through a rather unfriendly divorce from his wife of ten years, Amy. Alone and bitter in his cabin, he continues to work on his writing when a stranger named John Shooter shows up on his doorstep, claiming Rainey stole his story. Mort says he can prove the story belongs to him and not Shooter, but while Mort digs around for the magazine which published the story in question years ago, things begin to happen around Shooter. Mort's dog dies, people begin to die, and his divorce proceedings with Amy continue to get uglier. It seems that Shooter has Mort over a barrel, but perhaps Mort has his own ideas on how to resolve all the problems that plague him lately.

Plot Keywords: surprise ending, extramarital affair, blood splatter, hit in the face, fire, diner, braces ...

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#8. Maniac (1980)

Storyline: Frank Zito misses his mother, who was killed in a car accident years before. She was abusive to him, and made money selling her body, but Frank still misses her. He tries to keep her from leaving him, and reform her evil ways, by killing young women and putting their scalps on mannequins which he displays around his apartment. Photographer Anna D'Antoni takes a picture of him in the park, and he pursues and befriends her. Is she the one he has been looking for or just another mother wannabe?

Plot Keywords: extreme violence, maniac, sadistic psychopath, victim, 1980s, italian american, italian restaurant ...

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#10. Knife + Heart (2018)

Storyline: Anne produces third-rate gay porn. After her editor and lover Lois leaves her, she tries to win her back by shooting her most ambitious film yet with her trusted, flamboyant sidekick Archibald. But one of her actors is brutally murdered and Anne gets caught up in a strange investigation that turns her life upside down.—Friends of Tinman

Plot Keywords: homosexual, male frontal nudity, male nudity, year 1979, based on true story, lesbian kiss, male rear nudity ...

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#11. Vacancy (2007)

Storyline: David and Amy Fox find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere when their car breaks down. Luckily, they come across a motel with a TV to entertain them during their overnight stay. However, there's something very strange and familiar about the Grade-Z slasher movies that the motel broadcasts for its guests' enjoyment. They all appear to be filmed in the very same room they occupy! Realizing that they are trapped in their room with hidden cameras now aimed at them filming their every move, David and Amy desperately find a means of escape through locked doors, crawlspaces and underground tunnels before they too become the newest stars of the mystery filmmaker's next cult classic!

Plot Keywords: slasher, estranged couple, murder, one night, survival horror, psychological torture, sadistic horror ...

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#12. Halloween (2007)

Storyline: The residents of Haddonfield don't know it yet... but death is coming to their small sleepy town. Sixteen years ago, a ten year old boy called Michael Myers brutally kills his step father, his elder sister and her boyfriend. Sixteen years later, he escapes from the mental institution and makes his way back to his hometown intent on a murderous rampage pursued by Dr Sam Loomis who is Michael's doctor and the only one who knows Michael's true evil. Elsewhere a shy teenager by the name of Laurie Strode is babysitting on the night Michael comes home... is it pure coincidence that she and her friends are being stalked by him?

Plot Keywords: serial killer, remake, female nudity, slasher, female full frontal nudity, female frontal nudity, female rear nudity ...

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#13. House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

Storyline: On the eve of Halloween, on October 1977, four friends--Bill, Jerry, Mary, and Denise--embark on an exciting cross-country road trip to write a guidebook about offbeat roadside attractions in America's less-travelled roads. Before long, the young explorers chance upon Captain Spaulding's Museum of Monsters and Madmen, only to become infatuated with the local legend of a deranged serial-killer doctor, and cross paths with the mysterious hitchhiker, Baby. However, when the unsuspecting group meets Baby's eccentric family after having a flat tyre, an endless night of terror, torture, and murder ensues. Has anyone ever got out alive from the House of Thousand Corpses?

Plot Keywords: depravity, masked man, sadism, sadistic psychopath, year 1977, blood, evil man ...

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#14. The Last House on the Left (1972)

Storyline: On the eve of her seventeenth birthday, Mari Collingwood tells her parents that she is going to the concert of underground band Bloodlust in New York with her friend Phyllis Stone. She borrows the family's car and heads with her friend to a dangerous neighborhood in the city. Meanwhile, the sadistic and cruel escapees Krug Stillo and Fred 'Weasel' Podowski are hidden in a hideout with their partners Sadie (Jeramie Rain) and Krug's addicted son Junior Stillo (Marc Sheffler) after killing two guards and one shepherd in their runaway. The two girls seek marijuana near the theater and meet Junior that offers some Colombian grass to them. They go to his apartment and are subdued by the criminals that rape Phyllis. On the next morning, they hide the girls in the trunk of their convertible and head to Canada. However, they have a problem with the car's rod and they stop on the road close to Mari's house. When Phyllis tries to escape, the gang stabs her to death and shots Mari after ...

Plot Keywords: serial killer, female pubic hair, female full frontal nudity, female frontal nudity, maniac, payback, engine trouble ...

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#15. Motel Hell (1980)

Storyline: Farmer Vincent kidnaps unsuspecting travellers and is burying them in his garden. Unfortunately for his victims, they are not dead. He feeds his victims to prepare them for his roadside stand. His motto is: It takes all kinds of critters...to make Farmer Vincents fritters. The movie is gory, but is also a parody of slasher movies like Last House on the Left.—Scott Lane <rslane@ix.netcom.com>

Plot Keywords: pig mask, cannibal, cannibalism, 1980s, farmer, rural setting, trap ...

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