'American Psycho' vs 'Spree': Stylish Satire and Subpar Slasher

 

It’s not a big secret by this point that my favourite film characters tend to be psychopaths. These twisted yet nuanced individuals often immediately draw me to a film. A particular favourite of mine is Patrick Bateman, the murderous businessman portrayed by Christian Bale in the 2000 satirical horror ‘American Psycho’ (based off the equally excellent book). So when I saw posters for the 2020 film ‘Spree’ frequently using the statement from Collider “‘American Psycho’ for the digital age” I was both intrigued and hesitant. Intrigued to see how the film would direct a similar kind of satire and commentary to modern society and hesitant as I was almost convinced it wouldn’t succeed. Regardless, I watched the film and was left disappointed. To be able to express my thoughts on the film, I will be comparing it to ‘American Psycho’ to highlight where it missed the mark for me.

 

‘American Psycho’ follows Patrick Bateman, a narcissistic 1980’s Wall Street worker, for a long period of his life as he descends further into a spiral of madness and violence. ‘Spree’ on the other hand, follows Kurt Kunkle (‘Stranger Things’ star Joe Keery), an aspiring influencer who, in a quest to achieve internet fame, spends a night live streaming a killing spree from his taxi. On paper, I found both these premises interesting, but I found ‘American Psycho’ handled theirs in a much more compelling way. ‘Spree’ is initially engaging, with interesting kills and exploration of Kurt’s character and desire for fame. However, the films struggled to balance these two areas and Kurt begins to feel like little more than a generic slasher villain. Meanwhile, ‘American Psycho’ is able to juggle these two areas much more effectively. The film has a similar violence level to ‘Spree’ (and even more in regard to the book), but this tends to take a backseat to exploring Bateman’s mind. As a result, Patrick Bateman is a much more layered and intriguing character for me than Kurt is.

As both films centre almost entirely around one person ‘American Psycho’s’ more character-focused narrative made it a much more engaging film.

 

To add to the narrative comparisons, there is a distinct difference in the way the two films frame their central character. To demonstrate this, we only need to look at the first murder in each film. In ‘Spree’, Kurt begins his rampage with the death of a far-right, white supremacist spokesperson spouting hate speech on his stream. In sharp contrast, the first death in ‘American Psycho’ is a black homeless man brutally murdered as Bateman couldn’t relate to him. The difference couldn’t be clearer. Whilst Kurt was planning to kill his victims regardless of their personality and does eventually target more innocent people, the film seems to want to justify the majority of their on-screen deaths. Whether they were harmful to society, offensive directly to Kurt or simply irritating, ‘Spree’ seems to need to make their victims as unlikable as possible before Kurt kills them. As an impact, the film seems to be suggesting that these characters deserved to die, which seems to position Kurt for most of the film not as a villain but as a sort of anti-hero. ‘American Psycho’ does not have this issue. All of Bateman’s victims are presented as innocent, with their worst “crime” being having a more successful life than Patrick. All Bateman’s actions are driven purely by his ego, making it much easier to see him as a villain. In a genre like this, where having a distinct and memorable villain is so important, I feel that ‘American Psycho’ gets it right which make it a more terrifying and effective watch.

 

Another area where ‘Spree’ failed to match ‘American Psycho’ in my opinion is the way it delivers its themes and satirical elements. Of course, they are focusing on two very different groups of people, with ‘American Psycho’ targeting 1980’s “Yuppies” and ‘Spree’ examining modern day online influencers. Despite this, the main idea is the same, to dissect and mock successful groups in society. ‘American Psycho’ was never particularly subtle, with Bateman’s monologues being the main vehicle to explore themes of greed and conformity, but these were backed up by other smart writing decisions.  A running joke in the film and book is that everyone gets each other’s names mixed up, showing how all these businessmen seem identical. With this in mind, it becomes clear why Bateman cares so much and makes monologues about things like business cards, dinner reservations and pop culture. They reflect his desire to fit into this elite society whilst also standing out above them. It’s details like this that I feel have made ‘American Psycho’ into such an iconic piece of satire. ‘Spree’ had the potential to take the same path, with Kurt making very similar monologues to Bateman. This made sense as he was talking to a stream but also reflected how he wanted to be seen as “deep” and inspirational. However, this became less effective as the film went on. As opposed to smart, intricate details, ‘Spree’ opts to have multiple characters give monologues about internet culture or be caricatures of internet groups. This was made worse by the comments on the stream, which while occasionally interesting, seemed to mostly state the obvious. This resulted in a messy, ham-handed attempt to break down modern internet culture that didn’t bring anything new to the discussion. In a way the film comes across a lot like Kurt himself, trying to be insightful and provocative but ending up shallow.

 

Whilst these comparisons did lessen my overall opinion of ‘Spree’, there is one area it really excels, this being its camerawork. Most shots from the film are shown from the perspective of cameras on a livestream, whether this is Kurt’s phone and cameras in his car or another character’s phone. In situations where these can not be used, security camera footage is used instead. The film also shows shots on a phone screen displaying Google searches or YouTube videos. Occasionally, several cameras will be on screen at once to show events from multiple perspectives. This makes the film feel dynamic and fast-paced in a way that conventional camerawork like that in ‘American Psycho’ sometimes can’t. This effective use of modern internet technology along with the comments, which while often annoying made the experience feel immersive, showed me that the filmmakers had a real-life understanding of the way the internet is actually used. In the end, these visual quirks didn’t significantly change my perception on ‘Spree’, but it did make it a bit more enjoyable to sit through. In the future I’d like to see this style of filming explored again as a modern successor to the found footage genre.

 

In conclusion, it’s clear to me that ‘Spree’ has a desire to replicate and modernise the dark yet insightful style of ‘American Psycho’ but fails to live up to these expectations. With a less compelling narrative and messy exploration of its themes, it seems like little more than a pale imitation of an iconic film and piece of literature. As a whole, I feel ‘Spree’ was mis-marketed, or at least towards me it was. When taken as a somewhat cheesy horror comedy, the film arguably succeeds. With all that said, for anyone who watched ‘Spree’ or likes the sound of the premise, I would wholeheartedly recommend the 2014 film ‘Nightcrawler’, staring Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom, a psychotic news cameraman. This film touches on many similar ideas and themes as ‘Spree’ such as the demand for media in a much more intellectual and haunting manner, which made it a personal favourite film.