The first glimpse of what's shaping up to be the most controversial film of 2000 is revealed this week in heat magazine, which has laid its hands on exclusive stills from American Psycho. Adapted from Bret Easton Ellis' much maligned novel, AP is the thoroughly nasty tale of flashy Wall Street banker Patrick Bateman (played by Christian Bale), who has a predilection for the torture and murder of young women, not to mention a penchant for using body parts as objects for display in his apartment.
heat's exclusive shows the interior of Bateman's fridge - containing a human head - the banker wielding a cordless drill, and removing a skin-tone latex mask, which signifies impending murder. The film is directed by Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol), who says she's left out many of the worst scenes of violence from the book - but such assurances have had little impact on critics. Women's movements have always been critical of the novel, which they feel is worryingly complicit with violence towards women, and the film has prompted the same attacks. The movie has been fraught with problems from the very start, when the initial lead, British actor Christian Bale, was dumped in favour of flavour of the month Leonardo DiCaprio. Then Leo jumped ship even before shooting started, apparently scared off by the story, and Bale was reinstalled. Then to cap it all , executive producer Michael Stipe (of REM) also caught a case of collywobbles and left the project. Due for release in April 2000, American Psycho co-stars Willem Dafoe, Reese Witherspoon, Chloe Sevigny and Jared Leto.