I’m unsure whether or not “American Psycho” is intended to be a legitimate horror movie, a parody or both. This is a messy and depraved film with scenes of extreme violence covered in a pop music video feel. At times, it feels completely surreal yet throughout, it feels awkward and unwholesome.

In this movie, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale “Batman Begins”, “The Machinist”) is a wealthy Wall Street investment banking executive (and a devout narcissist), who has some terrible secrets. He struggles to hide his psychopathic ego from those around him as he spends his nights engaging in murder and disturbing sexual activities.

Christian Bale is a great actor but here he comes across as goofy, this guy acts more like Freddy Krueger than a real serial killer. Bateman never feels like a real person, he’s a complete caricature. The sadistic acts carried out by Bateman in the film are disgusting and unpleasant but his cheeky sense of humour just confuses us about how we are meant to feel. The scenes where Bateman interacts with other people are just ridiculous because he is so poor at hiding his violent impulses. William Dafoe (“Spider-Man”) is underwhelming as a police detective investigating one of Bateman’s murders. The other characters are all really boring.

“American Psycho” features some disgraceful sexual scenes and some brutal instances of violence yet the movie seems like it sort-of wants us to laugh. The movie isn’t even sure what to say when it all ends as we get an ambiguous finale. I warn people that this is a very distressing watch as we see scenes of what amount to sexual torture and we also see scenes of very graphic violence. In one scene, Bateman has “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” playing in the background and much like that film, “American Psycho” aims for shock value over substance.