It's true that the unreliable narrator trope does cheapen American Psycho's meaning. Finally, out of all the people Patrick murdered, not a single body is found or seen again after the deed has been done. It could simply be that his lawyer found the idea impossible, but that's likely not the case.

Thirdly, when Patrick calls his lawyer and confesses to all of his horrific crimes the lawyer laughs him off. This is surprising, considering at the end his murders were so brazen that he was chasing sex workers while naked and wielding a chainsaw. Secondly, Willem Dafoe's Donald Kimball, though purposefully suspicious throughout the course of the movie, ultimately isn't able to tie Christian Bale's Patrick to any of the murders. The most obvious indication of this is the fact that Paul Allen's body was nowhere to be found, and the apartment was spotless upon Patrick's arrival. While director Mary Harron has adamantly refused that the American Psycho ending explained it is all in Patrick Bateman's head, there's enough ambiguity behind the events of the story to suggest otherwise.

Turner blames the muddiness of the ending on the dichotomy between the fantasy world that Bateman is currently living in and the reality of the murderous situation at hand. While it's true that Patrick is experiencing delusions and hallucinations, it doesn't mean that the murders are in his head. Writer and The L Word actress Guinevere Turner has also been adamant that the American Psycho ending explained that Bateman was the killer all along. Related: 2000 Was A Fantastic Year For Horror Movies I think it's a failure of mine in the final scene because I just got the emphasis wrong. All I wanted was to be ambiguous in the way that the book was. Harron stated, 'One thing I think is a failure on my part is people keep coming out of the film thinking that it's all a dream, and I never intended that. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Mary Harron states that she wished to make the ending ambiguous as a direct homage to the book, never intending people to believe that the American Psycho ending explained Bateman was never a killer at all. When in fact, both filmmakers agree that the ending did happen in real life, and Batman actor Christian Bale's Bateman won't be prosecuted for his crimes based on his affluence and high-society station.

Ellis american psycho