The recent movie The Bride! is the latest edition of the series of films I call “Killer Couple” films. These are classics like Bonnie & Clyde or True Romance that blend a love story with the road movie, along with crime movies that show couples willing to kill to protect their love. There’s something about crime as a romantic gesture that appeals to me. Here are three “Killer Couple” films inspired by true stories.
[imbd.com]In 1957, 19-year-old Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate embarked on a killing spree across Nebraska and Wyoming that left 11 dead. Badlands, the film loosely inspired by their story, it’s a haunting and beautifully realized road movie that I hold in high regard. Playing like a homicidal version of James Dean, Martin Sheen plays a teenage killer who takes his naïve girlfriend (Sissy Spacek) on a doomed road trip that involves robbery and murder. Malick’s visual style here is pure poetry. Not only does the script work in lucid observations about criminals becoming would-be celebrities, but I also love how the film photographs the midwestern landscape. In Malick’s hands, merging Spacek’s dissociated voice-overs with deserted farmlands, windswept plains, and empty roads creates a dreamlike tale of two lost souls in a part of America left behind. I particularly like the shot of the empty road at night, illuminated only by their car’s headlights, foreshadowing the doomed couple’s journey to nowhere. For all the overly violent and ironic movies about killer couples on the run, this one remains one of the best. ★★★★
[imbd.com]They were called the Lonely Hearts Killers, and from 1947 to 1949, Raymond Martinez Fernandez and Martha Jule Beck were suspected of kidnapping and murdering up to 20 people they met through personal ads in the newspaper. The film version of their disturbing relationship is one of the best killer couple movies out there. Anchored by two strong performances from Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco, and shot in an abrasive black-and-white, the Honeymoon Killers‘ power comes from how the story is fervently anti-marriage while still believing in true love. The two main killers are deeply in love even as they pretend to be in love with others in order to murder them. A different movie may have been more flashy and exploitative. However, watching Honeymoon Killers is almost like watching a documentary, and occasionally, a snuff film. It’s a different kind of romance. ★ ★ ★1/2
[imbd.com]Their names were Jeffrey and Jill Erickson. Before they became bank robbers, they were a seemingly normal couple in the Chicago suburbs. Their deadly crime spree inspired Normal Life, an overlooked Killer Couple film from the ’90s. Luke Perry, in his finest performance, plays a cop who falls for an emotionally unstable woman (Ashley Judd). The couple is low on cash and desperate for some semblance of the American Dream. They turn to robbing banks to try to have a normal life. Another film might have played this premise as comedy, but the movie never sugarcoats the sex or self-destructive impulses that drive these characters. It’s an angry love story and a great film that should be rediscovered by a larger audience. ★ ★ ★1/2
