The Golden Glove and 3 Other Lesser-Known Serial Killer Horror Movies You Haven't Seen
These films are less well known than hits like The Silence of the Lambs and Zodiac, but they are no less chilling.
Playing a serial killer, real or fictional, is a real challenge for any actor, even the most fearless. Not everyone can afford to look into the minds of real psychopaths – after all, if you stare into the abyss long enough, it begins to stare back at you.
1. 10 Rillington Place, 1971
In the early 1940s, British man John Christie killed at least six people, including his own wife. He was not caught until 1953, ten years after the first attack. It is known that the madman's victims included an underage girl and a pregnant woman.
In the 1971 biographical film 10 Rillington Place, the role of Christie was played by Richard Attenborough. The actor himself hated his character, but took the job anyway, without even reading the script – he wanted to test his acting skills.
2. The Chaser, 2008
Pimp and former policeman Joong-ho notices that several sex workers have disappeared. All the girls vanished after a meeting with a client. Joong-ho tracks down the psychopath, who leaves the bodies in an abandoned house.
The pimp even catches the killer, but there is not enough evidence. Joong-ho is running out of time – the sex worker who was the last to answer the madman's call might still be alive.
As is typical for Korean movies, there is a lot of blood, spectacular car chases through the narrow streets of Seoul and brutal fights.
3. The Golden Glove, 2019
Fatih Akin's The Golden Glove is one of those movies that touches all of the viewer's senses. On the Reeperbahn, the red-light district in Hamburg's St. Pauli district, there is a tavern called The Golden Glove.
The worker and alcoholic Fritz Honka drinks every night and tries to take future victims home with him. The maniac saws women into pieces right in his own home and stores the corpses in an empty room behind the walls.
The stench is unbelievable, but Honka always fools his neighbors by inventing blockages in the plumbing.
4. The Vanishing, 1993
In 1993, five years after the original German-Dutch film, director George Sluizer made an auto remake of The Vanishing with young Hollywood stars.
Aspiring writer Jeff and his fiancée Diane go on a romantic trip. At a gas station in Washington State, the woman disappears without a trace, and Jeff loses his peace for several years.
No one could have imagined that Barney, a chemistry teacher and family man, was responsible for the high-profile crime. This is an exemplary thriller about the impossibility of letting go of the secrets of the past and the demons that lie dormant in the souls of ordinary people.