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Natural Born Killers is a 1994 American crime film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Sizemore, and Tommy Lee Jones. The film tells the story of two victims of traumatic childhoods who become lovers and mass murderers, and are irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.
The film is based on an original screenplay by Quentin Tarantino that was heavily revised by Stone, writer David Veloz, and associate producer Richard Rutowski. Tarantino received a story credit though he subsequently disowned the film. Jane Hamsher, Don Murphy, and Clayton Townsend produced the film, with Arnon Milchan, Thom Mount, and Stone as executive producers.
The film was released on August 26, 1994 in the United States, and screened at the Venice Film Festival on August 29, 1994. It was a box office success, grossing $110 million against a production budget of $34 million, but received a mixed critical reception. Some critics praised the plot, acting, humor, and combination of action and romance, while others found the film overly violent and graphic. Notorious for its violent content and inspiring "copycat" crimes, the film was named the eighth most controversial film in history by Entertainment Weekly in 2006.
Plot[]
Mickey Knox and his wife Mallory stop at a diner in the New Mexico desert. A duo of rednecks arrive and begin sexually harassing Mallory as she dances by a jukebox. She initially encourages it before beating one of the men viciously. Mickey joins her, and the couple murder everyone in the diner, save one customer, to whom they proudly declare their names before leaving. The couple camp in the desert, and Mallory reminisces about how she met Mickey, a meat deliveryman who serviced her family's household. After a whirlwind romance, the couple had murdered Mallory's sexually abusive father and neglectful mother before having an unofficial marriage ceremony on a bridge.
Later, Mickey and Mallory hold a woman hostage in their hotel room. Angered by Mickey's desire for a threesome, Mallory leaves, and Mickey rapes the hostage. Mallory drives to a nearby gas station, where she flirts with a mechanic. They begin to have sex on the hood of a car, but after Mallory suffers a flashback of being raped by her father and the mechanic recognizes her as a wanted murderer, Mallory kills him. The pair continue their killing spree, ultimately claiming 52 victims in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. Pursuing them is detective Jack Scagnetti, who became obsessed with mass murderers at the age of eight after having witnessed the murder of his mother at the hand of Charles Whitman. Beneath his heroic façade, he is also a violent psychopath and has murdered prostitutes in his past. Following the pair's murder spree is self-serving tabloid journalist Wayne Gale, who profiles them on his show American Maniacs, soon elevating them to cult-hero status.
Mickey and Mallory become lost in the desert after taking psychedelic mushrooms, and they stumble upon a ranch owned by Warren Red Cloud, a Navajo man who provides them food and shelter. As Mickey and Mallory sleep, Warren, sensing evil in the couple, attempts to exorcise the demon that he perceives in Mickey, chanting over him as he sleeps. Mickey, who has nightmares of his abusive parents, awakens during the exorcism and shoots Warren to death. As the couple flee, they feel inexplicably guilty and come across a giant field of rattlesnakes, where they are badly bitten. They reach a drugstore to purchase snakebite antidote, but the store is sold out. A pharmacist recognizes the couple and triggers an alarm before Mickey kills him. Police arrive shortly after and accost the couple and a shootout ensues. The police end the showdown by beating the couple while a news crew films the action.
One year later, the imprisoned Mickey and Mallory are thought to be criminally insane and are scheduled to be transferred to psychiatric hospitals, with Scagnetti overseeing their transfer. Warden Dwight McClusky tells Scagnetti that he should kill the Knoxes during their transfer and claim that they had tried to escape. Meanwhile, Gale has persuaded Mickey to submit to a live interview that will air after the Super Bowl. During the interview, Mickey declares himself a "natural born killer," inspiring the other inmates to start a prison riot. After McClusky terminates the interview, Mickey is left alone with Gale, the film crew and several guards. He manages to overpower a guard and kill most of the people in the room, taking Gale and several others hostage. Gale and his crew give a live television report that profiles the riot. Meanwhile, when Scagnetti attempts to seduce Mallory in her cell, she beats him viciously before another guard subdues her with tear gas. Mickey and Gale reach Mallory's cell, where Mickey kills the guards and engages in a Mexican standoff with Scagnetti before Mallory murders him.
Gale's entire television crew is killed trying to escape the riot, while Gale himself begins indulging in violence, shooting at prison guards. Mickey and Mallory steal a van and escape into the woods with Gale, to whom they give a final interview before declaring that he must die. He attempts various arguments to change their minds, appealing to their trademark practice of leaving one survivor. Mickey informs him that they are leaving a witness to tell the tale: his camera. Gale accepts his fate and is shot to death. Unbeknownst to the three, the entire exchange is transmitted to a horrified news anchor through Gale's in-ear microphone.
Several years later, Mickey and Mallory, still fugitives, travel in an RV, as a pregnant Mallory watches their two children play.
Cast[]
- Woody Harrelson as Mickey Knox
- Juliette Lewis as Mallory Wilson Knox
- Robert Downey Jr. as Wayne Gale
- Tom Sizemore as Detective Jack Scagnetti
- Tommy Lee Jones as Warden Dwight McClusky
- Rodney Dangerfield as Ed Wilson
- Edie McClurg as Mrs. Wilson
- Sean Stone as Kevin Wilson
- Russell Means as Warren Red Cloud, Sr. aka The Navajo Man
- Lanny Flaherty as Earl
- Evan Handler as David
- Balthazar Getty as Gas station attendant
- Richard Lineback as Sonny
- Kirk Baltz as Roger
- Steven Wright as Dr. Emil Reingold
- Pruitt Taylor Vince as Deputy Warden Kavanaugh
- Joe Grifasi as Deputy Sheriff Duncan Homolka
- Everett Quinton as Deputy Wurlitzer
- Marshall Bell as Deputy
- Peter Crombie as Intense cop
- Grand L. Bush as Prison inmate
- Louis Lombardi as Deputy "Sparky"
- Dale Dye as Dale Wrigley
- Corey Everson as Mallory Knox in TV reconstruction
- O-Lan Jones as Mabel
- James Gammon (uncredited) as Redneck buddy
- Mark Harmon (uncredited) as Mickey Knox in TV reconstruction
- Adrien Brody and David Pasquesi (uncredited) as Gale's cameramen
- Arliss Howard (uncredited) as Owen Traft, Mickey and Mallory's Guardian angel / The Demon
Director's cut[]
- Ashley Judd as Grace Mulberry
- Rachel Ticotin as Prosecutor Wanda Bisbing
- Peter and David Paul as Simon and Norman Hun
- Denis Leary and Bret Hart as prison inmates
Analysis and Themes[]
One of the central themes of Natural Born Killers is the relationship between real-life violence and the mass media's coverage of it. This thematic preoccupation was declared in the film's promotional materials, with its theatrical poster advertising it as a "bold new film that takes a look at a country seduced by fame, obsessed by crime, and consumed by the media."
The character of Wayne Gale, the television host of American Maniacs, functions in the film as a figurehead of lurid true crime television documentaries, which recycle real-life incidents of violence and criminal activity into entertainment for the general public. On several occasions, expressionistic jump cuts featuring Gale as a blood-soaked Satan are interspersed into the film, which Muir suggests emphasizes the film's assertion that mass media and crime mutually reinforce one another.
Media representation of the nuclear family has been identified as another theme in the film, particularly with the depiction of Mallory's dysfunctional family life, which includes a neglectful mother and a sexually abusive father. Muir notes that the sequence depicting Mallory's home life—presented as a television sitcom with the title I Love Mallory (a parody of I Love Lucy)—charts "the colossal gulf between the imagery sold to America regarding family life and the truth, for many Americans, of such family life in the 1990s." The "sitcom" representation of Mallory's household results in a visual dichotomy between her "life as she imagined it should be (replete with an oppressive laugh track eradicating any scary sense of ambiguity)" and the "grim truth of it."
Ian Cooper wrote that Mickey Knox's prison interview "parodies Geraldo Rivera's jailhouse interview with [Charles] Manson."
Production[]
Concept[]
Natural Born Killers was based on a screenplay written by Quentin Tarantino, in which a married couple suddenly decide to go on a killing spree. Tarantino had sold an option for his script to producers Jane Hamsher and Don Murphy for $10,000 after he had tried, and failed, to direct it himself for $500,000. Hamsher and Murphy subsequently sold the screenplay to Warner Bros. Around the same time, Oliver Stone was made aware of the script. He was keen to find something more straightforward than his previous production, Heaven & Earth (1993), a difficult shoot which had left him exhausted.
David Veloz, associate producer Richard Rutowski, and Stone rewrote Tarantino's script, keeping much of the dialogue but changing the focus of the film from journalist Wayne Gale to Mickey and Mallory. The script was revised so drastically that Tarantino was credited for the story only. In a 1993 interview, Tarantino stated that he did not hold any animosity towards Stone, and that he wished the film well.
Initially, when producers Hamsher and Murphy had first brought the script to Stone's attention, he had envisioned it as an action film; "something Arnold Schwarzenegger would be proud of." As the project developed however, incidents such as the O. J. Simpson case, the Menendez brothers case, the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan incident, the Rodney King incident, and the Federal assault of the Branch Davidian sect all took place. Stone came to feel that the media was heavily involved in the outcome of all of these cases, and that the media had become an all-pervasive entity which marketed violence and suffering for the good of ratings. As such, he changed the tone of the film from one of purely action to a "vicious, coldhearted farce" on the media. Coloring Stone's approach to the material, and contributing to the violent nature of the film, were the anger and sadness he felt at the breakdown of his second marriage. He also said in an interview that the film was influenced by the "vitality" of Indian cinema.
Casting[]
Principal photography took 56 days to shoot. Filming locations included the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge just west of Taos, New Mexico, where the wedding scene was filmed, and Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois, where the prison riot was filmed. In Stateville, 80% of the prisoners are incarcerated for violent crimes. For the first two weeks on location at the prison, the extras were actual inmates with rubber weapons. For the subsequent two weeks, 200 extras were needed because the Stateville inmates were on lockdown. According to Tom Sizemore, during filming on the prison set, Stone would play African tribal music at full blast between takes to keep the frantic energy up. While shooting the POV scene wherein Mallory runs into the wire mesh, director of photography Robert Richardson broke his finger and the replacement cameraman cut his eye. According to Oliver Stone, he was not popular with the camera department on set that day. For the scenes involving rear projection, the projected footage was shot prior to principal photography, then edited together, and projected onto the stage, behind the live actors. For example, when Mallory drives past a building and flames are projected onto the wall, this was shot live using footage projected onto the facade of a real building. An alternate ending was filmed but not used, in which Mickey and Mallory are shot dead by Arliss Howard's character. Stone decided against using this ending because he believed "the 1990s were a time when the bad guys got away with it".
The famous Coca-Cola polar bear ad is seen twice during the film. According to Stone, Coca-Cola approved the use of the ad without having a full idea of what the film was about. When they saw the completed film, they were furious.
Filming[]
Principal photography took 56 days to shoot. Filming locations included the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge just west of Taos, New Mexico, where the wedding scene was filmed, and Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois, where the prison riot was filmed. In Stateville, 80% of the prisoners are incarcerated for violent crimes. For the first two weeks on location at the prison, the extras were actual inmates with rubber weapons. For the subsequent two weeks, 200 extras were needed because the Stateville inmates were on lockdown. According to Tom Sizemore, during filming on the prison set, Stone would play African tribal music at full blast between takes to keep the frantic energy up. While shooting the POV scene wherein Mallory runs into the wire mesh, director of photography Robert Richardson broke his finger and the replacement cameraman cut his eye. According to Oliver Stone, he was not popular with the camera department on set that day. For the scenes involving rear projection, the projected footage was shot prior to principal photography, then edited together, and projected onto the stage, behind the live actors. For example, when Mallory drives past a building and flames are projected onto the wall, this was shot live using footage projected onto the facade of a real building. An alternate ending was filmed but not used, in which Mickey and Mallory are shot dead by Arliss Howard's character. Stone decided against using this ending because he believed "the 1990s were a time when the bad guys got away with it".
The famous Coca-Cola polar bear ad is seen twice during the film. According to Stone, Coca-Cola approved the use of the ad without having a full idea of what the film was about. When they saw the completed film, they were furious.
Visual style[]
Natural Born Killers was filmed and edited in a frenzied and psychedelic style and features both color and black and white cinematography, as well as animation (directed by Mike Smith), and other unusual color schemes and visual compositions. Editing of the film lasted approximately 11 months, with the final film containing almost 3,000 cuts (most films have 600–700). The film also employs a wide range of camera angles, featuring Dutch tilts prominently throughout, with the camera rarely angling along a horizontal field of vision. Film scholar Robert Kolker notes that the Dutch angle's employment in the film is "the visual equivalent of a profound dislocation, a loss of object constancy, the slipperiness of subjectivity itself." Kolker comments that, unlike such films as Bonnie and Clyde from which Natural Born Killers draws influence, "from the very beginning... the viewer is forced into a dual situation, neither one of which allows easy access to the main characters. One situation, continued throughout the film, is a kind of rhythmic attention created by a startling flow of images. Stone builds his visuals on unexpected linkages and disorienting juxtapositions within the shots and edits."
Because the film is thematically preoccupied with media, Stone sought to implement visual elements of popular television into the film's visual tableau: "It had never quite been done before – a mixture of stocks and styles. I was influenced, I have to say, by MTV and some of the styles I saw in the early '80s and '90s on television. But no one had tried that style over the course of 90, 100 minutes." Commercials which were commonly on the air at the time of the film's release make brief, intermittent appearances as well.
Concurrent with Stone's preoccupation with television as both a visual and thematic reference point, portions of the film are narrated through parodies of popular television series, including a sequence presented in the style of a sitcom about Mallory's dysfunctional family (titled I Love Mallory), a parody of I Love Lucy. In the film's final montage, splices of real-life television news coverage of various criminal cases of the time are included, such as the O. J. Simpson case, the Menendez brothers, and the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan incident. Film scholar John Kenneth Muir notes this inclusion as an "exclamation point" concluding the film's thesis: "It seems to say, 'Welcome to the tabloid-TV culture of America in the 1990s, where crime pays and pays well.'"
Music[]
- Main article: Natural Born Killers (soundtrack)
The film's soundtrack was produced by Stone and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, who reportedly watched the film over 50 times to "get in the mood". Reznor reportedly produced the soundtrack while on tour. On his approach to compiling the soundtrack, Reznor told MTV:
I suggested to Oliver [Stone] to try to turn the soundtrack into a collage-of-sound, kind of the way the movie used music: make edits, add dialog, and make it something interesting, rather than a bunch of previously released music.
Some songs were written especially for the film or soundtrack, such as "Burn" by Nine Inch Nails.
Reception[]
In its opening weekend, Natural Born Killers grossed a total of $11.2 million in 1,510 theaters, finishing first at the US box office. It finished its theatrical run in the United States and Canada with a total gross of $50.3 million. It grossed an estimated $60 million internationally for a worldwide total of $110 million against its $34 million budget.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 49% based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 5.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Natural Born Killers explodes off the screen with style, but its satire is too blunt to offer any fresh insight into celebrity or crime – pummeling the audience with depravity until the effect becomes deadening." On Metacritic, the film has an average weighted score of 74 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four and wrote, "Seeing this movie once is not enough. The first time is for the visceral experience, the second time is for the meaning." On his television show, his partner Gene Siskel agreed with him, adding extra praise to the scene featuring Rodney Dangerfield.
Criticism[]
Other critics found the film unsuccessful in its aims. Much of the criticism centered around the perception that the film was not effective as a satire and its message was muddled. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "While 'Natural Born Killers' affects occasional disgust at the lurid world of Mickey and Mallory, it more often seems enamored of their exhilarating freedom. If there is a juncture at which these caricatures start looking like nihilist heroes, then the film passes that point many times." Hal Hinson of The Washington Post voiced a similar concern, saying "'Killers' is intended as a gonzo critique of the mass media and, by extension, of the bloodthirsty legions of couch potatoes whose prurient taste guarantees that the garbage rises to the top of the charts. But the film doesn't make it as a piece of social criticism. Primarily this is because the movie's jittery, psychedelic style is so obviously a kick for Stone to orchestrate. Bloody, pulpy excess is his thing; it's what he does best.” Hinson noted the film also loses its "symbolic footing" when it transitions into a prison film.
Some critics felt the film's focus on the mass media as the main culprit of society's ills rang hollow, or the film did not adequately hold the characters of Mickey and Mallory accountable for their actions. Maslin continued, "for all its surface passions, Natural Born Killers never digs deep enough to touch the madness of such events, or even to send them up in any surprising way. Mr. Stone's vision is impassioned, alarming, visually inventive, characteristically overpowering. But it's no match for the awful truth."
James Berardinelli gave the film a negative review but his criticism was different from many other such pans, which generally said that Oliver Stone was a hypocrite for making an ultra-violent film in the guise of a critique of American attitudes. Berardinelli noted that the movie "hits the bullseye" as a satire of America's lust for bloodshed, but repeated Stone's main point so often and so loudly that it became unbearable.
Stone got in trouble with the Native American community for the use of Russel Means.
At the 1994 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, Harrelson was nominated for Worst Actor but lost to Bruce Willis for Color of Night and North. The film was nominated for Worst Picture but lost to North.
Year-end lists[]
- 2nd – David Stupich, The Milwaukee Journal
- 8th – Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times
- 8th – Michael Mills, The Palm Beach Post
- 8th – Christopher Sheid, The Munster Times
- Top 10 (not ranked) – Bob Carlton, The Birmingham News
- Honorable mention – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
- Honorable mention – Dennis King, Tulsa World
- Honorable mention – Howie Movshovitz, The Denver Post
- Honorable mention – Dan Webster, The Spokesman-Review
- Best-worst movie – Todd Anthony, Miami New Times
- 1st worst – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- 1st worst – Dan Craft, The Pantagraph
- 2nd worst – John Hurley, Staten Island Advance
- 10th worst – Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News
- 10th worst – Sean P. Means, The Salt Lake Tribune
- Worst films (not ranked) – Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News
- Top 4 worst (not ranked) – Stephen Hunter, The Baltimore Sun
Retrospective[]
For the film's 25th anniversary in 2019, critics wrote about the film's impact in popular culture and its relevance today. Writing for The Guardian, Charles Bramesco argued the film's rebuke of the media as responsible for violence does not hold up to current times. Bramesco wrote, "With every public bloodbath [in the news today], discourse inches closer to accepting their root cause as a combination of lax gun laws and an undercurrent of psychosis endemic to those feeling marginalized from society. Stone’s inquest may have been a shock to the system at the time, but his tracing of that psychosis back to the evils of television scans as borderline reactionary to present-day sensibilities." Bramesco also noted the film's inclusion of Native American mysticism into its plot felt like a "white understanding of native culture."
In contrast, critic Owen Gleiberman said the film still "captures how our parasitical relationship to pop culture can magnify the cycle of violence...'Natural Born Killers' was the movie that glimpsed the looking glass we were passing through, the new psycho-metaphysical space we were living inside — the roller-coaster of images and advertisements, of entertainment and illusion, of demons that come up through fantasy and morph into daydreams, of vicarious violence that bleeds into real violence.”
Release[]
Home media[]
Natural Born Killers was released on VHS in 1995 by Warner Home Video. A director's cut version of the film was released the following year on VHS by Vidmark/Lionsgate, who also released a non-anamorphic DVD of the director's cut in 2000. Distribution rights to Stone's director's cut reverted from Lionsgate to Warner Bros. in 2009, after which Warner issued an anamorphic DVD edition as well as a Blu-ray.
Controversies[]
Quentin Tarantino[]
After Quentin Tarantino attempted to publish his original screenplay to Natural Born Killers as a paperback book, as he had done with his scripts for True Romance and his own directorial efforts, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, the producers of Natural Born Killers filed a lawsuit against Tarantino, claiming that when he sold the script to them, he had forfeited the publishing rights; eventually, Tarantino was allowed to publish his original script.
Tarantino disowned the film, saying, "I hated that fucking movie. If you like my stuff, don't watch that movie."
Censorship[]
When the film was first submitted to the MPAA, employees told Stone they would give it an NC-17 unless he edited it. As such, Stone removed some violence by cutting approximately four minutes of footage, and the MPAA re-rated the film as an R. In 1996, a Director's Cut was released on home video by Vidmark Entertainment and Pioneer Entertainment. Warner Home Video later released this cut on Blu-ray.
The film was banned completely upon release in Ireland, including – controversially – from cinema clubs. The ban was later lifted.
In the UK, though the cinema release was delayed while the BBFC investigated reports that the film caused copycat murders in the USA and France, it was finally shown in cinemas in February 1995.
The original intended UK home video release in March 1996 was cancelled due to the Dunblane massacre in Scotland. In the meantime, Channel Five showed the film in November 1997. It was finally released on video in July 2001.
Entertainment Weekly ranked the film as the eighth most controversial film ever.
"Copycat" crimes[]
From almost the moment of its release, the film has been accused of encouraging and inspiring numerous murderers in North America, including the Heath High School shooting and the Columbine High School massacre. The Columbine killers even code-named their attack: "NBK", an acronym for Natural Born Killers.
Since the 1994 film Natural Born Killers was released, several attacks suspected to be copycat crimes have been committed by fans of the film, mostly by high school students within the age range of 15 to 18. Though apparent links have been claimed between the film and most of the incidents described below, certain causality has not been proven.
On March 5, 1995, Sarah Edmondson (18) and her boyfriend Benjamin James Darras (also 18) spent a night alone together at her family's cabin in Muskogee, Oklahoma, watching Natural Born Killers. Two days later, they left the cabin and packed Edmondson's Nissan Maxima with blankets and a .38-caliber revolver. They allegedly left Muskogee to attend a Grateful Dead concert in Memphis, Tennessee. On March 7, they arrived in Hernando, Mississippi, when Darras killed cotton-mill manager William Savage by shooting him twice in the head at point blank range. Darras then took a piece of blood-stained fabric from Savage to keep as a token. Later, with Edmondson, he spoke openly about killing Savage. They then travelled to Ponchatoula, Louisiana, where Edmondson shot Patsy Byers, a convenience store cashier. Byers survived the attack, being rendered quadriplegic. Savage had been a friend of best-selling author John Grisham, who publicly accused Oliver Stone of being irresponsible in making the film, stating that filmmakers should be held accountable for their work when it incites viewers to commit violent acts.
In July 1995, Byers took legal actions against Edmondson and Darras, and in March 1996, she amended her lawsuit to include Stone and the Time Warner company. With the advice of Grisham, Byers used a "product liability" claim, stating that the filmmakers "knew, or should have known that the film would cause and inspire people [...] to commit crimes such as the shooting of Patsy Ann Byers." Grisham wrote in an article called "Unnatural Killers" in the April 1996 edition of the Oxford American magazine, "The last hope of imposing some sense on Hollywood will come through another great American tradition, the lawsuit. A case can be made that there exists a direct causal link between Natural Born Killers and the death of Bill Savage. It will take only one large verdict against the likes of Oliver Stone, and then the party will be over." On January 23, 1997, on the grounds that filmmakers and production companies are protected by the First Amendment, the case was dismissed, but Byers immediately appealed, and on May 15, 1998, the Intermediate Louisiana Court of Appeals overturned that decision, claiming that Byers did indeed have a valid case against the filmmakers (Byers had died of cancer in late 1997). On March 12, 2001, judge Robert Morrison dismissed the case on the grounds that there was no evidence that either Time Warner or Stone had intended to incite violence.
In June 2002, the Louisiana Court of Appeal turned down an appeal from Byers' attorneys, and the suit was closed.
Sarah Edmondson has been released on parole in Oklahoma after serving less than twelve years of a thirty-year sentence. Her parole will end in 2025.
Benjamin Darras continues to serve his sentence at the Mississippi State Prison at Parchmen, MS. He has written a letter for pardoning to the Mississippi Governor's Office where he explains how his life has changed in prison. He also has a Bachelor's Degree in Christian Ministry from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and tutors for their Parchmen extension.
The case was featured in an episode of the Oxygen Network true crime series Snapped: Killer Couples, which originally aired on March 24, 2013.
This case was featured in an episode of Reelz series CopyCat Killers that originally aired March 5, 2016.
On December 1, 1997, in West Paducah, Kentucky, 14-year-old Michael Carneal went to school carrying four .22 rifles, 2 .30-30 Winchester rifles and a Ruger .22 handgun. Upon arriving at the school, he inserted a pair of earplugs and opened fire with the handgun at a prayer meeting, killing three of his classmates and wounding five others. After he was finished shooting, Carneal calmly dropped the gun and surrendered to the school principal. Carneal was charged with murder and attempted murder and initially sentenced to three life sentences for murder plus 150 years for five counts of attempted murder. Following appeal, this was altered to life in prison with no possibility of parole. In April 1999, Jack Thompson, attorney for the parents of the murdered children, filed a $33 million lawsuit against Time Warner, Polygram Film, Palm Pictures, Island Pictures, New Line Cinema, Atari, Nintendo and Sony Computer Entertainment. Specifically mentioned were Natural Born Killers and the 1995 film The Basketball Diaries, as well as the video games Doom, Redneck Rampage, Nightmare Creatures, Resident Evil, and Mortal Kombat. Thompson argued that the films and games had encouraged Carneal to act the way he did, and that Doom had provided him with excellent target practice. In July 2001 the US Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's dismissal of the case.
On April 20, 1999, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered twelve students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The massacre ended with both perpetrators committing suicide. It has been confirmed that both Harris and Klebold were fans of Natural Born Killers. Prior to the massacre, they had used the initials 'NBK' as their code. In a journal entry dated, April 10, 1998, Harris wrote "When I go NBK and people say things like 'Oh, it was so tragic,' or 'oh he is crazy!' or 'It was so bloody', just because your mommy and daddy told you blood and violence is bad, you think it's a fucking law of nature? Wrong, only science and math are true, everything, and I mean every fucking thing else is Man made. Before I leave this worthless place, I will kill whoever I deem unfit for anything at all, especially life." Harris also referred to April 20 as "the holy April morning of NBK", and in an undated journal entry, Klebold (who was severely depressed) wrote "I'm stuck in humanity. Maybe going NBK w. Eric is the way to break free".
During one of the "Basement Tapes" found in Harris's and Klebold's homes, the perpetrators mention how Hollywood will want to adapt their life story, and they debate on whether or not Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino (who conceived the story for Natural Born Killers) are appropriate choices to direct the proposed film.
On April 23, 2006, Jeremy Allan Steinke (23) and his 12-year-old girlfriend Jasmine Richardson murdered her parents, Marc and Debra Richardson, as well as her 8-year-old brother, Jacob, in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Steinke and Richardson were arrested on April 24 in Leader, Saskatchewan, and were charged with three counts of first-degree murder. According to friends of the daughter, her parents had punished her for dating Steinke, due to the age disparity, and forbade her from visiting him. Shortly after her arrest, Steinke proposed marriage to her, which she accepted.
On July 9, 2007, Richardson was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to ten years in prison, which is the maximum penalty for an individual under 14 years of age. On December 5, 2008, Steinke was also found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder, and on December 15, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole for 25 years. The Natural Born Killers connection was that Steinke had allegedly watched the film the night before the incident. He also spoke to friends of "going Natural Born Killer on her [Richardson daughter] family".
On February 2, 1996, in Moses Lake, Washington, 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis entered his algebra classroom dressed as a Wild West-style gunslinger and was wearing a black duster. He was armed with a .30-30 caliber hunting rifle and two handguns (.357-caliber revolver and .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol) that belonged to his father, and was carrying approximately 78 rounds of ammunition. He opened fire at students, killing two, Arnold Fritz and Manuel Vela, Jr., both fourteen. Another student, 13-year-old Natalie Hintz, sustained critical gunshot wounds to the right arm and abdomen, and was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Loukaitis then fatally shot his algebra teacher Leona Caires in the chest. Teacher and coach Jon Lane entered the classroom upon hearing the gunshots to find Loukaitis holding his classmates hostage. He planned to use one hostage so he could safely exit the school. Lane volunteered as the hostage, and Loukaitis kept him at gunpoint with his rifle. Lane then grabbed the weapon from Loukaitis and wrestled him to the ground, later assisting in the evacuation of students. He kept Loukaitis subdued until police arrived at the scene.[citation needed]
Loukaitis was said to be obsessed with violent books and movies, including Natural Born Killers. He rented the movie seven times and would often quote it to friends.
On September 13, 2006, at Dawson College, a CEGEP in Westmount near downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Kimveer Gill began shooting outside the de Maisonneuve Boulevard entrance to the school, and moved towards the atrium by the cafeteria on the main floor. One victim died at the scene, while another 19 were injured, eight of whom were listed in critical condition with six requiring surgery. The shooter later committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, after being shot in the arm by police. He listed the movie as one of his favorites on his blog.
Other incidents[]
- In September 1994, a 14-year-old boy from Dallas, Texas, decapitated a 13-year-old classmate at a Dallas middle school. When asked why he did this, he allegedly said it was because he "wanted to be famous. Like the Natural Born Killers."
- In October 1994, 17-year-old Nathan Martinez from Bluffdale, Utah, shot and killed his stepmother and 10-year-old half-sister while they slept. He was apprehended three days later in O'Neill, Nebraska, following a nationwide manhunt. Martinez was allegedly obsessed with the film and claims to have seen it at least 10 times in the week prior to the murders. He had even shaved his head the way Mickey does at the end of the movie, and he had taken to wearing the same style of round sunglasses as Mickey. Martinez was released on parole in May 2018.
- On March 5, 1995, in Senoia, Georgia, 15-year-old Jason Lewis shot and killed his parents after allegedly deciding he wanted to emulate Mickey and Mallory. Lewis was on the telephone talking to a friend discussing how he was planning to kill his mother and father and leave for the road, when he suddenly announced, "I'm going to do it." According to the friend, as he listened on the phone, he heard Lewis shooting his parents. He grabbed his father's 12-gauge shotgun, and shot his mother, sitting in a recliner watching television. The shot didn't kill her, and as she screamed, he fired again, hitting his father, lying on a nearby couch. A third shot to his mother's face killed her, and a fourth shot to his father's forehead killed him. According to Lewis' friend, Lewis then calmly returned to the phone and announced "I did it. It's done." It was subsequently discovered that Lewis was one of four young boys who planned to kill their parents, and embark on a cross country killing spree similar to that seen in the film. All four boys were arrested. During interrogation, when asked why he did it, Lewis told investigators that it was because his parents had imposed a midnight curfew on him.
- In Avon, Massachusetts, in June 1995, two men, ages 18 and 20, killed a physically handicapped 65-year-old man by stabbing him 27 times with a Bowie knife whilst he lay sleeping in his bed. The attack was so ferocious that both of the man's wrists were broken due to the force of the attacks, and his body was split open from clavicle to spine. After the murder, the ringleader bragged to his girlfriend about the murder. When she expressed horror at his actions, he asked her "Haven't you ever seen Natural Born Killers before?" During the interrogation, one of the murderers told police, "[w]e know what we did was bad, but we didn't know this guy so we weren't going to cry about it."
- On January 3, 1997, New York firefighter James Halversen was running at the high school track in Centereach, New York, when William Sodders (21) shot and killed him in an act of random violence. Sodders had purchased a 9 mm pistol and he and his friend Eric Calvin, had gone to the track to practice shooting. When they got there, Sodders encountered Halversen. He went out onto the track, and bent over pretending to tie his shoelaces. As Halversen approached, Sodders stood up and shot him at point-blank range. He also shot and killed Halversen's dog. The next day, Sodders's father, Patrick, turned him in to police after Sodders's girlfriend, Nicole, told Patrick that she thought William had something to do with the killing. According to Patrick Sodders, Natural Born Killers was his son's favorite film, and he deeply admired Mickey and Mallory. According to his father, ever since seeing the film, Sodders had even begun to act like Mickey. Sodders was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison.
- On April 14, 2001, Luther Casteel was booted out of JB's Pub in Elgin, Illinois, for harassing female customers and employees. Drunk and enraged, he went straight home, shaved his hair into a mohawk and changed into military fatigues, armed himself with two handguns (Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver & Smith & Wesson 9mm semi-automatic pistol), two shotguns (12-gauge sawed-off shotgun & Harrington & Richardson 12-gauge pump-action shotgun), and 200 rounds of live ammunition. Once he started shooting, witnesses said he laughed and screamed, "I'm the king, how do you like me now?" Also screaming, "I am a natural born killer" and "I am the king", he fatally shot bartender Jeffrey Weides and customer Richard Bartlett, also wounding 16 others (some of whom were permanently disabled) before being wrestled to the ground by bar patrons and employees. At his trial, facing the death penalty, Casteel said "I'm not someone who asks for mercy or pity for my actions" and "I have absolutely no fear of anything anyone can put upon me." He was sentenced to death. Casteel's sentence was commuted to life without parole in 2003 after then-governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of all death row inmates.
- On December 18, 2004, in Jacksonville, Florida, Angus Wallen and Kara Winn, both 27, shot and killed their roommate Brandon Murphy (22) before setting him and the apartment on fire in an attempt to cover up the crime. Wallen and Winn had only recently moved in with Murphy, and had decided to steal his debit card. When he resisted, Winn shot him in his shoulder, and Wallen shot him in the head, killing him. They had allegedly watched Natural Born Killers the night before the murder, and prosecutors argued that the crime resembled a similar crime in the film where a couple kill a man, light his remains on fire, and then escape together, even though there wasn't such a scene in the film. They were arrested the next day in Biloxi, Mississippi, and during the subsequent trial, they turned on one another, each saying the murder was the other's idea. They were both sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
- On July 19, 2008, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Eric Tavulares strangled his girlfriend, Lauren Aljubouri, to death. Tavulares and Aljubouri, both 18, had been watching the movie, and stopped it about halfway through before going to bed. According to Tavulares, he and Aljubouri were lying in bed talking, when he "switched mentally" and began strangling her. Upon arriving at the scene, Tavulares told police "I did it, I can't believe it. I did it." He later claimed that he had seen Natural Born Killers between 10 and 20 times. On January 31, 2009, Tavulares (who pleaded guilty during the trial) was sentenced to a minimum of 40 years in prison.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
References[]
- ↑ "NATURAL BORN KILLERS (18)". British Board of Film Classification (December 20, 1994).
- ↑ "Natural Born Killers (1994)". Box Office Mojo (1994-10-18).
- ↑ "Planet Hollywood". Screen International. August 30, 1996. pp. 14–15.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.
Sources[]
- Kolker, Robert Phillip (2000). A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Stone, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-512350-0.
- Levy, Emanuel (1999). Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-5289-0.
- Muir, John Kenneth (2011). Horror Films of the 1990s. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-8480-5.
- Seitz, Matt Zoller (2016). The Oliver Stone Experience. New York: Abrams. ISBN 978-1-61312-814-5.
Further reading[]
- Hamsher, Jane (1998). Killer Instinct. Broadway.
- Hanley, Jason. (2001) "Natural Born Killers: Music and Image in Postmodern Film," in Postmodern Music/ Postmodern Thought, Routledge. ed. Joseph Auner and Judy Lochhead, pp. 335–359.
External links[]
- Natural Born Killers at Box Office Mojo
- Natural Born Killers at Rotten Tomatoes
- Natural Born Killers at Metacritic
- "Natural Born Killers: Beyond Good and Evil", by Heidi Nelson Hochenedel, Ph.D.
- "Natural Born Copycats", a 2002 article from The Guardian on Stone's response to claims that the film inspired several murders.
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