Source Material: Christian Bale in American Psycho

'Pumpkin, you're dating the biggest dickweed in New York.'

I didn't see American Psycho in the theatre, in fact I don't really even remember it coming out.  I do though, remember some great shots of actor Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.  Reading back now, I see the film got mixed reviews.  Although Bale and director Mary Harron saw the humor in the script, it didn't always translate to viewers and reviewers.

What I do remember, is seeing caps from the film when it was released on VHS and then DVD.  The caps of Bale in the shower, Bale in his undies, and a naked Bale with the chainsaw.  Fans of the film and Bale know it was years later that full frontal caps came out from footage originally unreleased. 

When I first saw the film on DVD, I was a little underwhelmed.  I went back and forth between seeing and humor, and reacting to the horror.  I also couldn't help but think of a few men I knew who had more than few similar personality traits as Bateman.  They're all, no longer a part of my life.  A second viewing a few later had me appreciating the film, and Bale's performance. For some reason I always forget that Reese Witherspoon was in the film.  Most of the attention, and deservedly so, goes to Bale and his turn as Bateman.

'I created this guy who becomes this emblem for yuppie despair in the Reagan Eighties – a very specific time and place – and yet he’s really infused with my own pain and what I was going through as a guy in his 20s, trying to fit into a society that he doesn’t necessarily want to fit into but doesn’t really know what the other options are. That was Patrick Bateman to me.'

Bret Easton Ellis

'American Psycho is ridiculous. It's farcical on many levels. The book is ridiculous, brilliant but ridiculous, as is the script, and that's what we intend. It's very funny and I had no idea it was funny when I first received the script. All that I knew were the excerpts I'd seen in newspapers which generally had chosen the most grizzly scenes.'

Christian Bale