The ambiguous ending of American Psycho is intentional, with director Mary Harron and writer Guinevere Turner confirming that Bateman is indeed a serial killer, but many viewers misunderstand it as an "it was all a dream" trope.
Patrick Bateman's crimes were not a dream, at least not all of them, instead, the real message that both Herron and Eston Ellis wanted to convey was that a man of such social status could literally get away with murder.
Although Manhattan is a real place, American Psycho is a work of fiction and imaginary locations in the city are part of the story. An imaginary space is a space that is figurative, like a city in a book. To say that a space is imaginary is not to deny its relation to reality.
Throughout the film, Patrick Batemen's deranged thoughts and actions only get weirder and weirder until eventually reaching a true breaking point. But one theory believes that the mass murderer only killed one person, leaving his body count nothing more than a hallucination.
After Bateman confesses all of his crimes, he returns to Allen's apartment but finds no traces of any of his murders and the property put up for sale. Confused, he meets colleagues for lunch and bumps into his lawyer who took his confession for a practical joke.
American Psycho Ending Explained: What Really Happened?
Was American Psycho all in his head?
The bottom line: while it's clear some things that happen in the film are in Bateman's head (like the Feed Me a Stray Cat scene), the murders actually happened.
This, combined with sex, violence, drugs, and other desires of the id, is how Bateman enacts his sociopathic violence in a superficial world. Bateman's episodes of schizophrenia also shows clear signs on how he copes with being an affluent person living in a superficial world, fashioned on consumerism.
He admits to taping a lot of his crimes, eating some of his victims' brains, and even trying to cook them. Specifically, he cops to killing Paul Allen (Jared Leto) with an ax to the face, sobbing to Harold that his body is currently dissolving in a bathtub in Hell's Kitchen.
Despite his affluence and high social status, Bateman is constantly plagued by unsettling feelings of anxiety and low self-esteem. He kills many of his victims because they make him feel inadequate, usually by having better taste than he does.
TL;DR: Patrick Bateman has a mental disorder caused by lifelong conflict-of-interests with his father. He doesn't actually kill anyone in the film; all the murders take place in his sleep, but they're vivid enough dreams that he can't separate them from reality.
We really set out to make it really clear that he was really killing these people, that this was really happening.” Also confirmed by the author of the novel Bret Easton Ellis: “If none of the murders actually happened, the entire point of the novel would be rendered moot.”
Whose head is in Patrick Bateman's fridge? The woman who he picked up in the previous scene at the club with Bryce, where he did the cocaine in the back room.
In American Psycho (2000) Willem Dafoe (Detective Kimball) acted each meeting with Bateman 3 ways in 3 different takes: 1. He knew Bateman was the killer, 2. He only suspected Bateman was the killer, 3. He did not suspect Bateman.
American Psycho explores the inherent violence of corporate greed, using Patrick Bateman's sadistic acts as a metaphor for the callousness of Wall Street. The film's ambiguous ending signifies Bateman's moral awakening, as he tries to hold himself accountable for his actions while those around him remain indifferent.
Answer and Explanation: Many of the events in American Psycho take place entirely inside of Patrick Bateman's imagination. His crimes are all daydreams created by Bateman's twisted mind for his own entertainment.
American Psycho ends with Patrick staring into the camera, with his voiceover confessing, “There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed.
Christie was a local prostitute, whom Patrick Bateman had taken to his home alongside another sex worker named Sabrina. However, Patrick covers himself up as being Paul Allen. At the apartment, they have a threesome before Patrick verbally abuses them with sadism. Later on, Patrick asks her to have sex with him again.
In Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, the protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is apparently simply a psychopath. However, Bateman can be diagnosed with other mental illnesses such as Asperger's syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, narcissism, and antisocial personality disorder.
He usually hangs out with his coworkers at P&P but secretly hates most of them. Bateman kills men and women, the latter for sadistic sexual pleasure and the former because they anger him and make him feel inferior.
Patrick Bateman: Both, because 90% of his deeds are in his head due to cocaine-induced psychosis, but he is very racist and misogynistic (probably due to his father) Walter White: Broken, he's riddled with cancer and wanted to help his family but it all fell apart due to his cruelty.
He displays a high functioning form of Asperger's syndrome, yet there are still symptoms present in Bateman of which even the highest functioning people with Asperger's syndrome cannot rid themselves. One of the key symptoms in Asperger's syndrome is the need for strict routine.
It's made clear there is no "top" to Bateman. There is only becoming more successful than the previous day. Therefore, Bateman would be a Sigma in that regard. In American Psycho's first act, Bateman makes it known to his fiancée that he wishes to conform to society as best he can, unlike his other roles.
According to the Wiki article, the lawyer "mistakes him for another colleague". This is supposed to drive home the fact that although he is somewhat of a narcissist, he is unimportant to certain people around him.
Patrick Bateman is the protagonist in the film "American Psycho", and he suffers from three personality disorders, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder.
Bateman and his friends are also heavy drug users. Early in the novel, Bateman's cocaine use is largely social, but he later does more and more of the drug and his attitude towards it become increasingly aggressive. Bateman begins taking pills, too – downers like Halcion, Valium, and Xanax.
