Smooth talking, violent and devoid of humanity: Who doesn’t love a psycho?
On-Screen Psychos
Psychos are good for the chills — Fatal Attraction, if nothing else, put a whole generation off rabbit stew — but they’re also lots of fun to be around.
It’s hard not to enjoy the babyishly brutal Peter III of Russia as played by Nicholas Hoult in the Hulu series The Great. (The fact Hoult’s most memorable performance before that involved him singing “Killing Me Softly” as a kid without friends in 2002’s About a Boy was a clear warning.) It’s equally hard not to cheer for the Joker as he repeatedly tries to end boring-as-batshit Batman. Likewise Moriarty (possible psycho) as he torments goody-two-shoes coke fiend Sherlock Holmes, and Wile E. Coyote (definite psycho) as he tries to flatten Road Runner.
Tim Roth’s character in the new film Sundown was described in The Guardian as a “wonderfully relaxed sociopath,” and the movie itself was dubbed the “funniest” and “nastiest” at this year’s Venice Film Festival — a classic blend of right-on and revolting.
Villanelle (Jodie Comer) in Killing Eve is a “living, breathing, shopping, killing psychopath” — not to mention babe — whose attractiveness to Eva Polastri (Sandra Oh) is perfectly believable. Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) in Dexter is a square-jawed, cop-come-psycho who kills for, um, good. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) in American Psycho makes us laugh while cleaving heads. Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) in Misery is a lovable homebody who hobbles a writer with a mallet and Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in Psycho wears his mom’s clothes — lol.
The stylized brutality of the screen sociopath is a salve for society’s chafing manacles. Unlike us, they’re given free rein to do whatever they want, which usually involves sticking it to the man, literally.
If you’re conflicted about having feels for screen psychos, take heart from the fact that you’re not a psycho. Real psychos lack empathy and wouldn’t feel conflicted (or any other emotion) about cheering for the bad guys in A Clockwork Orange. They probably don’t even Netflix and chill because they reportedly have no creativity or inner life.
Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in Silence of the Lambs, with his love of art and literature, not to mention his appetite — in a good way — for Jodie Foster’s Clarice? Killer, please! A 2014 Belgian study by forensic psychiatrists looked at 126 fictional psychopaths and concluded Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) of the Cohen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men was the most clinically accurate portrayal. Which is to say: If a dude with a terrifying haircut and air-powered bolt gun asks you for a quick game of heads or tails, keep walking. The same study found that — as in real life — there were far fewer female screen psychos than male. The majority of those that exist — just think Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) in Basic Instinct — tend to be sexy killer nymphs, which again is sadly unrealistic, unless you’re a spider.
I mean, I say “sadly” but I don’t really mean it. What do you think I am — a psycho?
Clearly the preceding article as it appeared in Penthouse Magazine puts forth a lot of purely editorial opinion, and around here we vigorously defend the right to hold – and voice – one’s own opinion. That said, if you ever find yourself rooting for the villains in “A Clockwork Orange,” at the very least you need a nap.
On to a completely unrelated more pleasingly visual topic, this seemed like a grand time to do one of those thinly disguised plugs for paid memberships. … OK. So that’s not entirely true, this actually has no disguise at all. It would be more of a blatant plug, although that does not make it less valuable, should your interests lie in the Penthouse Vault arena.
In manner of explanation, we jumped into that section of the membership site and sort of randomly picked an assortment of images to display in this gallery – and we say “randomly” because we do have the “people need to be clothed” rule in the free areas of sites the Penthouse main office controls.
If you happen to be unaware, the “Vault” section of PenthouseGold remasters original chromes (usually chromes) from any point in the magazine history where photographers were using this old-school recording method call film. (You may need to look that up on Wikipedia if you find yourself unfamiliar with the term.) We can assure you that Psychos was not a theme in any of these shoots, but as you can see, we do have a history of interesting photographic excursions.
You might also be interested to know that every one of these pictures in this Flirty Dozen comes from a gallery set on PenthouseGold published since the first of this year. (That would be roughly over the last couple of months, should you be reading this article later and not want to do the math.) … Currently the site boasts well over a thousand individual layouts remastered and republished in digital format, so should you be a fan of Penthouse history, you might enjoy that section, even despite the standard video emphasis that all modern adult sites employ. You can get videos in thousands of places on the web – including free places, obviously – but you can only find Penthouse layouts on PenthouseGold.
Exclusive rocks, right? We have always been just a tad bit different in this company, and have always taken pride in that fact, truthfully.
For the record, naturally, Penthouse has never, ever shot a single model from the Psychos category; we want to be clear about this. … That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.
