While plenty of films have taken a stab at putting ripped-from-the-headlines horror on
the big screen, some are better than others at capturing the look of real-life serial
killers.
Jeffrey Dahmer
Between 1987 and 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer lured 16 men to his apartment, fed them sleeping
pills, and disposed of them in all kinds of horrific ways.
When Dahmer was arrested on June 22, 1991, the police found body parts in his refrigerator
and a half-finished shrine made from skeletal remains.
Jeremy Renner, who portrayed the Milwaukee Cannibal in the 2002 biopic Dahmer, reportedly
didn't have a lot of time to prepare for his role.
He told Interview Magazine,
"I didn't even know who Jeffrey Dahmer was, and then four days later after reading the
script we're going into principal photography, and two weeks later we're done."
Nevertheless, Renner's performance and appearance were both eerily convincing.
Aileen Wuornos
Charlize Theron's Oscar-winning take on highway killer Aileen Wuornos in 2003's Monster is
as bleak as it gets, but the real story is even bleaker.
In 1989 and 1990, Wuornos lured men into the woods in central Florida and shot them point-blank
with a pistol.
In less than 12 months, she shot seven men and pawned their belongings in nearby cities,
leaving their bodies in the woods.
Theron gained 30 pounds for the role and endured painstaking sessions in the makeup chair to
have latex and dental prosthetics applied before filming.
To match Wuornos' mannerisms, she watched documentaries about the killer and read through
12 years' worth of personal correspondence that Wuornos had sent from jail.
Ed Gein
Despite being the basis for plenty of film killers, such as Buffalo Bill in The Silence
of the Lambs and Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the real-life Ed Gein only
killed two people.
What he did a little more often than killing was dig up corpses and make clothes and lampshades
out of their remains, all because he wanted to look like his mother.
With a story like that, it's no wonder Gein inspired so many screen killers, although
the 2000 biopic Ed Gein is one of the few films that focuses on the actual man behind
the macabre crimes.
Gein is played by Steve Railsback, who also portrayed Charles Manson in 1976's Helter
Skelter.
This isn't a typically sensational story about trying to stop the killer before he kills
again, but it definitely dives into disturbing territory.
John Wayne Gacy
Dubbed the "The Killer Clown," John Wayne Gacy was convicted of ending the lives of
33 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978 in Cook County, Illinois.
He was known for burying his victims in the crawl space under his house, and his nickname
came from his appearances as "Pogo the Clown" at fundraising events, parades, and children's
parties.
Plenty of fictional characters were inspired by Gacy's clown act, but surprisingly few
films have been made about the man himself.
The 2003 biopic Gacy, also known as The Crawl Space, is one exception that made an effort
to depict the killer's life in a realistic way.
Gacy is played by Mark Holton, who matches the killer most closely in terms of body type
and makeup.
Jack Kevorkian
Was Jack Kevorkian a serial killer or an agent of mercy?
Even today, the debate rages on about the physician the media dubbed "Dr. Death" for
championing euthanasia.
In You Don't Know Jack, Al Pacino plays a man who fights the social norm to give people
the option to choose their own deaths.
The HBO film won the actor an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and
it's easy to see why.
Although Pacino admitted that he never met Kevorkian, who was still alive at the time
of the film's 2010 release, he had plenty of televised footage to base his performance
on.
Everything from his glasses to his mannerisms to his courtroom rants matched up closely
with the real Kevorkian.
Karla Homolka
The 2006 crime thriller Karla is a brutal film told from the point of view of Karla
Homolka, a Canadian woman who killed three women with her husband Paul Bernardo in the
early '90s.
The two were arrested in 1993.
Bernardo was sentenced to life in prison, while Karla spent 12 years in custody and
was released in 2005.
In the film, the blonde-haired Karla is played by Laura Prepon, who is probably best known
as Donna from That '70s Show.
Prepon may be a natural redhead, but her performance as Homolka is nonetheless fairly convincing.