Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been covering the release of “Smiley Faced Killers”, a unique stalker/slasher movie directed by Tim Hunter and penned by “American Psycho” author, Bret Easton Ellis.
The film is based on “The Smiley face murder theory” which was advanced by retired New York City detectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, and Dr. Lee Gilbertson, a criminal justice professor and gang expert at St. Cloud State University. Further to their investigations, they suggested that a number of young men who were found dead in various bodies of water across several Midwestern American states between the late 1990s to the 2010s didn’t actually drown, as law enforcement agencies concluded, but rather were all victims of either a serial killer or a group of killers.
The term “smiley face” became associated with these alleged murders when it was made public that graffiti depicting a smiley face had been discovered near locations where it was believed the killer or killers had disposed of some of the bodies.
Starring Ronen Rubenstein, Mia Serafino and Crispin Glover, the film follows the last 24 hours of a handsome young soccer player who starts to think he might be losing a grip on reality when he is unable to shake the feeling that he something or someone is stalking him.
With “Smiley Face Killers” now available on-demand, DVD and Blu-ray in the US and releasing in the UK on 14 December, SCREAM sat down with the film’s protagonist, Ronen Rubinstein (Follow Me, “9-1-1: Lone Star”) to discuss how he precariously approached themes of mental health and Easton Ellis’ designs to invert the male gaze from female victims or objects of desire to a young, good-looking guy …
Words: Howard Gorman
