American Psycho's Director and Screenwriter Celebrate the Bloody Classic's 25th Anniversary in Dallas

Sometimes the stars align, and the perfect activity happens on the perfect day. In such a psychotic moment in history, why not take your Valentine to see the film about the best-known psycho in America?

We're talking about the satirical slasher that helped make a star out of Christian Bale. When released in 2000, American Psycho's subject, Patrick Bateman, a 26-year-old investment banker with a bloody side hustle, was perhaps a bit too close to its 1980s source material.

The film's sleight-of-hand sarcasm (including scenes that focused on day traders showing off business card fonts and the delights of Huey Lewis and the News) seemed ripe for fun-poking, but critics were divided, and the Oscars ignored Bale's fantastic performance.

Then came the internet! As the popularity of memes rose in the late noughties, Bateman's Chad-like character proved ideal for fan art and copypastas, resetting the perception of American Psycho as a classic film. The business card scene alone has inspired innumerable copies, and both Kanye West and Maroon Five created videos inspired by the film.

Not bad for a story that was initially considered unfilmable. Bret Easton Ellis' original 1991 novel is a challenging read. The lead character slaughters women and a homeless man in the most stomach-churning of ways, yet Canadian director/writer Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) found the humor in the source material from the very start.

"I had read the book when it came out, and there was a scandal," Harron says. "But as soon as I started [it], I thought it was funny! The serious violence doesn't start for about 30 pages in. There's a lot of social comedy and social satire. It's quite a sort of apocalyptic version of New York City, but there's also a definite kind of irony, dark humor, and satirical distance."

Harron stopped the book when she hit a violent section about 30 pages in and put it down for a month. However, as the director had just made Warhol (a film that encapsulated the late '60s), she felt that the go-go capitalism of the Reagan era might be ripe for a reexamination. Then, there was a challenge in making a movie from a story that could have been its main character's fever dream.

"The book is kind of slippery and avant-garde and changes perspectives," she says. "Sometimes it's the third person, and sometimes, it's the first person. I thought it was an exciting challenge. All the scripts I was being sent were conventional, safe and boring. I was worried about losing my edge. I started mapping it out and knew that I wanted to keep the social satire as much as possible and minimize the violence."

To help her construct the story, she leaned on actress and writer Guinevere Turner, best known for her influential 1994 lesbian comedy Go Fish. After being introduced by producer Christine Vachon, the duo became fast friends.

"I was in London doing press for my first film," Turner says. "Mary said, 'You look like [pin-up icon] Bettie Page, and I didn't know who [she was]. We ended up at some lez club called Bettie Page's, and she asked if I wanted to have a drink in New York when we got back, and we immediately started talking on this creative level. She asked, 'Do you want to write a short on Bettie Page, and you can play her?' and that turned into a feature, and then American Psycho came to her."

It obviously took a woman's touch to make a film about the ultimate toxic bro dude.

"It was a big moment for me because my only film was Go Fish, that could not be more unlike this," Turner says. "I don't like scary stuff and don't watch scary movies, which is hilarious as I'm in the cool girl horror club by default. [The book] was on my radar for making Gloria Steinem mad, but when I read it, I was like, 'What is wrong with this guy?' When you read the book, it's just full of disgusting graphic imagery and Penthouse letters that morph into sexual violence, but here we are 25 years later. I saw what she saw: the potential for some sharp satire."

As Psycho had already been through five writers, it was quite the journey for the pair to get Lionsgate to bring it to the screen. This journey was made even more complex by the studio's insistence on casting Leonardo DiCaprio, then the biggest thing in the world after his performance in Titanic. Despite being a well-known child actor, Bale hadn't entirely climbed to the upper echelon of Hollywood, and Harron had to fight hard to get him the role.

"They wanted to cast Leo and pay him $20 million and the budget would still be $6 million, which was the craziest thing I ever heard," says Harron. "I thought it was extremely inappropriate to have someone who was the idol for 15-year-old girls to play Patrick Bateman, but at that point, he was the biggest young star in the world. I had spent half my life in Britain and had a similar sense of humor [to Christian], and he really got it. He didn't think Bateman was cool. He understood the part so well."

Luckily, DiCaprio left the project to make The Beach instead, and Harron's first choice was cast, as only his Ken doll good looks and simmering rage could have effectively brought such an unlikable character to iconic cinema status. Twenty-five years since its first Sundance appearance, Psycho is getting its due, with a spot in this June's Tribeca film festival, a similar experience to the Texas Theatre's Dallas screening.

When Harron's old friend, former Observer writer Matt Zoller Seitz, proposed showing the movie, the director and her longtime collaborator were all in and decided to screen another feature they wrote together, Charlie Says, on Feb. 13. That film exploring the Manson girls, may have been overshadowed by the more successful Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (released the same year) and deserves another look.

Not ones to rest on their laurels, Harron and Turner are currently working on another film (also about a serial killer) called The Highway That Eats People. Yet the duo remains fond of their most successful, slow-burn project. Turner, who teaches film at Syracuse University, is always surprised when students praise the movie that few seemed to like so many years ago.

"When it showed at Sundance back in the day, Kevin Smith, the writer/director, and I were supposed to have dinner, and he called and canceled," she says with a laugh. "I ran into him later, and he said, 'I didn't have dinner with you because I hated your movie so much, but I saw it again and realized it's actually brilliant!'

"My students are undergraduates and younger than this movie, but they're obsessed with it — they think I'm Julia Roberts. I asked them last semester, 'Why do you care about this movie that came out before you were born,' and this girl goes, 'Um, the MEMES!' It's funny to me, because what does it take to make a meme-able movie? It just speaks to the iconic cinematography and directing. It's like a meta accomplishment."

American Psycho will screen at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 14 at the Texas Theatre (231 W. Jefferson Blvd.) with Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner in attendance. The duo will also be in attendance for Charlie Says at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 13.