When a person is surrounded by just one message, it is easy to view conflicting messages as belonging to the "lunatic fringe" - like the people who think the moon landing was staged or the world is flat or that TV's lovable purple dinosaur character, Barney, was actually based on a serial killer.
The films are based on the work of crime novelist Thomas Harris, whose research on serial killers Hopkins used as inspiration in preparation for his unsettling performance.
Even "Dexter," a Showtime series about a serial killer who preys, vigilante-style, on serial killers, examines an engaging psychopath's fixation on crime and punishment, not extinction.
He credited the graphic coverage of violence by San Antonio news outlets as one inspiration for the film and based elements of the plot on serial killer Ed Gein in 1950s Wisconsin; Gein inspired other horror films such as Psycho (1960) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Caroline Grills was a full-on serial killer just like you'd see on the telly!
She has written novels in which the central characters were based on the cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and the hapless, dying Mary Jo Kopechne, with results that frequently seemed histrionic and metaphorically overburdened.
The film, which told a fictionalized story based on real-life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, was initially shelved for being too disturbing but later went on to gain a cult fandom.
"Frozen Ground" is an upcoming film based on real life serial killer Robert Hansen, a man who raped, tortured and murdered young women, strippers and prostitutes in Alaska in the 1980s.
There's also a livestream of the Bonnaroo music festival and live-action series based on a variety of topics, including serial killers and undead gunfighters.
"A serial killer based on urban legends?" scoffs a character in the 1998 slasher film "Urban Legend".
