Which films did you see last week? (10.17.2021 - 10.23.2021)

The first thing about A Hatchet for the Honeymoon that’s likely to jump out at the modern viewer is the resemblance between John Harrington and American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. I don’t think the connection actually means much, but it’s interesting to see what a satirical character looks like played straight instead. That’s particularly true here, because the central insight behind American Psycho’s satire— that so much of the modern world is set up to reward deeply antisocial behavior— is already unmistakably present in A Hatchet for the Honeymoon. It just isn’t the point of the story here. Like Bateman, Harrington has come to terms with his madness, and has placed himself in a setting that facilitates acting upon its drives. Meanwhile, the widespread human weakness for admiring the totally self-willed has made John a popular man, even to the extent of shielding him from any suspicion save that of one extremely perceptive and dogged cop. Women especially seem defenseless against Harrington’s charms, at least until Mildred’s ghost starts loitering around him all the time. Bava seems to be aware of what he’s touched on with Harrington, too, even if a critique of how we make things easy for intelligent sociopaths falls outside his actual aims for this film. After all, it cost Bava and his crew a lot of hassle to use Francisco Franco’s Barcelona villa for the interiors of the Harrington mansion, so we should probably interpret the shooting location as a nod toward a muted American Psycho-like theme.