Rick with serial killer John Wayne Gacy

Rick holds a portrait of his son,
painted by John Wayne Gacy

Violence is the lifeblood of American culture. Criminals attain mythological status; their crimes replayed by the media, forming a counter-narrative to the other dominant American myth of the success and reward bestowed upon the self-made man. The serial killer is the most recent incarnation in a line of criminal superstars that stretches back to revolutionary rebels, Southern renegades, Wild West gunslingers, and various other outlaws and gangsters. The particularities of the serial killer -- basically intelligent, white, male, suburban terminators -- has emerged as a merchandising phenomenon that rivals Mickey Mouse. From movies to television, books to on-line, serial killers are packaged and consumed en masse.

What if this market created desire for serial killer material was taken to its logical (at least consumerist logic) extreme? This is the story of Collectors.

Collectors sets out to explore the motivation of those who turn fascination into action. The documentary is less about killers and their crimes than those who fuel that the killer's life as public icon. The documentary records when consumers of the horrible become creators of horror.

There is the question of Art. In an age when an artist's name is the sole determinant of value, the fact that a serial killer's name would sell art is a perfect morbid parody: the "legitimate" art economy taken to its own grotesque conclusion.

Rick and Tobias actively write to serial killers -- and other (in)famous criminals -- urging them to take up painting. Rick started as a collector of horror movie posters, Tobias scripted his own serial killer films. Media creates its own transformation from art to murder to art -- is the fictitious a rehearsal of the real ?

Consumerism and art infused with blood ritual -- this was my train of thought as I set out to make the documentary. (The original title was "Postcards from Hell"). However, once the idea was put into motion, the revelation of the documentary format, as it unfolds, is metamorphosis. Serial killers come into being by fetishizing and collecting artifacts -- usually body parts - in turn, the dedicated collector gathers scraps connected with the actual events and so, too, is a documentary a collection of images.... The rest is there for you to see.

As with all independent projects, the filming was itself an adventure -- a Winnebago drive from New York to Louisiana, small budget, strange tales....and then onto the creation of the story in the edit room. It is a cooperative process that is only possible through the talent and contributions of many...Thanks to them. -Julian P. Hobbs New York City 1999