Your favorite serial killer.

[Calin Leafshade]

I'm doing research for a game and I was wondering if you guys could help me out a little.

The game is going to be a crime thriller in the vein of Zodiac and Se7en and I'm looking for other examples of movies or games which follow that format.

And as a side note which serial killer from fiction is your favorite in terms of characterisation and MO?

[ddq]

While they're not quite serial killers, I'm fascinated by murderers like Gaear Grimsrud and Anton Chigurh from Fargo and No Country for Old Men, respectively, as they embody unstoppable killing forces. I do have to give props in terms of creepiness to Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. You might also want to play Condemned, it had a few serial killers who were done quite well.

[monkey0506]

Probably one of the most renowned so it might seem cliche, but Ted Bundy. Mad props to him.

I mean..he was a sick, sick person. :

[Babar]

Genghis Khan? Does he count?

Or maybe Timur, his descendant.

[Iliya]

Andrei Chikatilo from "The real life"

[Ghost]

Bourbon Kid from "The Book With No Name", and, if he counts, Freddy from the NOES flics.
Man, did you just made me confess I have favourite serial killers??

[Wonkyth]

That dude from Night Watch cant recall his name...

[Mouth for war]

Jason Voorhees dammit. I'm obssessed with him. I even got a replica of his hockey mask at home AND a signed photo by Kane Hodder himself hehe

[Babar]

Y'know, I think I agree with 1kth now. If we are thinking of the same one. Not the dude who was the bumbling, artistic sidekick, but the other guy. I think he was called Pilch or something like that.

[Gilbert]

THIS, above everything...

Spoiler

...unless it is a zombie pirate phoenix...
J/K obviously, and I couldn't add a smiley here to make the spoiler too obvious. I just couldn't imagine how a serial killer could be one's favourite, otherwise.

[close]

[Ghost]

Y'know, I think I agree with 1kth now. If we are thinking of the same one. Not the dude who was the bumbling, artistic sidekick, but the other guy. I think he was called Pilch or something like that.

Mr Pin. But he was in "The Truth". The one in "Night Watch" was Carcer, and really much worse.

[Atelier]

Lars Thorwald from Rear Window. Wow it's a good film.

[Chicky]

Woody Harrelson as Micky in Natural Born Killers 

[SpacePirateCaine]

Charles Manson was of particular interest, mostly for me because my parents have been to his cabin in the desert before, and he just had one hell of a presence. Aside from him, if literary characters are alright (as it hasn't been mentioned before), Dexter Morgan, the eponymous 'protagonist' of the Dexter series on Showtime is a good example.

I like the Dexter character because his character revolves around a twisted but very set-in-stone sense of personal rules and regulations. He is a monster and a sociopath, but he kills for the betterment of his little slice of the world.

Also, if you want to go even further out on to a limb, the character "Yagami Light", though taking a much more supernatural path on the serial killer thing, was interesting. I think I just like characters who do bad things for good reasons - road to hell paved with good intentions, and so on and so forth. A character who just kills for the sake of killing, or just because they can, risks becoming 2-dimensional and uninteresting.

And, of course, let's not forget Hannibal Lecter.

[abstauber]

I still enjoy stories about Jack the Ripper

[Dualnames]

Zodiac is excellent.

[arj0n]

Ed Gein.

Movies (loosely) based on his character:
Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

[R4L]

Not exactly serial killers, but this should do.

[arj0n]

Wicked serial killer & canibal:
Albert Hamilton Fish

[Anian]

If you want suggestions and insipiration, I suggest the show Criminal minds. Not always "real" but within dialog they mention a lot of example casses of serial killers. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452046/

Zodiac is excellent. But well, my ol'time favorite is Hitler. Man, we're talking about "let the bodies set the flow" epic body count.

While it might seem nitpicky, Hitler was actually a mass murderer and ordered the comitting of genocides, not a serial killer in the usual way...although you might just make him seem like a serial killer on a grander scale and he does seem to have similar mental illnesses, motivation is certanly different.
Plus, IMO, I don't think Hitler was that bright of a fellow and he certanly went too mad later in the war, just that a lot of people took advantage of his ideas to take power, and those people knew how to organise things, I'm toalking about Himmler, Goebbels, Rommel etc.