7:4:23

Lethal Weapon, 1987

None of the mainstream so-called profiles and fictionalizations of serial killers ever talk about ritual abuse (read: Part V: The Mind (Control) of a Serial Killer), pedophile rings, or MKultra. Most of the killers are depicted as loners from “normal” homes. Serial killers from the late 1960s-1990s were not social-upheaval phenomenons, as I once believed (maybe the rare occasion). They were government-engineered DIDs (as well as the product of traumatic family abuse), designed to terrorize and enslave society.

In Lethal Weapon, programmed-to-kill assassin Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) has the running line/gag, “I’m not crazy.” (the sequel has Riggs trying to climb out of a straight jacket on a bet, Houdini-style). What is the alternative? The excuse the film gives for Riggs’ “suicidal psychosis” is that his beloved wife’s death has sent him over the edge—not his MKultra training in the Phoenix Program.

“Lost Boys” on the marquee behind them.