In the “1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick” video by alleged Montreal dismemberer Luka Rocco Magnotta, our gay gorefiend abducts and beheads an Asian man before doing unspeakable things to his corpse. You might not wanna click that link before going to an amusement park, if you know what I mean. The soundtrack to this sordid scene is New Order’s 1987 hit “True Faith,” the same song that’s playing in the background when Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) tells a bartender “I wanna stab you to death, then play around with your blood” in the 2000 Lions Gate film American Psycho. I take it our wanted man has never read the book by Bret Easton Ellis, in which all the hottest clubs are blasting “New Sensation” by INXS and Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth.” I don’t recall New Order being in the book, although I might be mistaken…
In any case, the synthpop song has led La Presse columnist Patrick Lagacé to not only compare Magnotta to Bateman, but to go one step further when he states “Magnotta, c’est Bateman.” Lagacé points out that the two share a disregard for both human and animal suffering (Magnotta allegedly has a thing for cats, Bateman tortures pets in the book, but more famously holds a gun to a cat’s head in the film), along with a taste for the macabre. They’re both obsessed with their appearance (I’ll take his word for it on the former) and they’ve both filmed their exploits. He also points out that Bateman tried to reenact porn scenes with a pair of prostitutes, while Magnotta apparently did gay porn somewhere. For the record, he’s not listed on IMDB…
OK, fair enough, but there’s one big difference. Patrick Bateman’s not gay. There may be some people who think he was gay, or at least in the closet, but they also believe he didn’t kill anybody. I can’t say I subscribe to either of those theories. Bateman may have killed Paul Owen/Allen with an axe to the face, but he did not proceed to sodomize his headless corpse with a wine bottle like the star of “1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick” did. I’d also say that Bateman’s image obsession wasn’t a gay thing, but rather a product of yuppie culture; he wanted to fit in with all the other guys in the office, wear the same suits, use the same brand of lotion, etc. From what photos I’ve seen of Magnotta, he definitely seems more effeminate. Let’s just say I can’t picture him in a Giorgio Armani suit with Oliver Peoples glasses.
Which doesn’t mean he wasn’t inspired by the movie, mind you. I’m reminded of one of the deleted scenes, in which Donald Kimball (portrayed expertly by Willem Dafoe, despite the fact that he’s supposed to be Bateman’s age in the book) runs into Bateman in a club–New Order isn’t playing in this one–and blurts out “They wanna confess… I mean, they wanna get caught!” Although slightly out of context in relation to the scene (which was about formal questioning versus informal conversations), it’s clear that by putting the video online and sending severed limbs to political parties, Magnotta wanted to be, if not caught, then at least recognized for what he allegedly did.
I do wonder, however, whether he follows Canadian politics all that closely. I mean, why send a hand to the Liberals, who are now the third party in the House of Commons? Wouldn’t that message be better directed to the Official Opposition? Unless there’s already a package headed their way, that is. The SPVM hasn’t stated that they’re aware of the whereabouts of the dead man’s penis…
Meanwhile, it’s assumed that the culprit is on a Glamorama-like whirlwind tour of Europe, possibly under a false identity. It won’t be long before the authorities seek out Easton Ellis for an informal conversation, methinks.
