Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers turns 20 years old this month with a special edition DVD release. The Carouser decides to take a look back at one of the most bloodthirsty couples in film.

Taken from a screenplay written by Quentin Tarantino, Natural Born Killers was set to be a film full of gore that would rival the famed director’s own movie of that same year, Pulp Fiction. In true Tarantino fashion, the story cuts deeper than the two rebels that conduct a murder spree across America. The love and interest in the pair reflect how modern society views crime.

Throughout the film, we are shown media coverage with the public’s reaction to the pair’s crimes on their bloody road trip down Route 666. We see Robert Downey Jr., a journalist, almost masturbating at the thought of interviewing the Knoxes, whilst young children are wearing shirts made with the murderers’ faces on them. One teenager proudly says, “If I were a mass murderer, I would be Mickey and Mallory,” which isn’t totally distinguished from today’s public. For example, we have seen a fan revoltingly emblazon himself with the words ‘Megalolz’ next to the slimey mug of Lostprophets paedophile Ian Watkins.

Though the blood and the violence are visible, it is made totally comical by the use of cartoon-like effects, almost making death a big joke. Even from the first scene, where Mickey chucks a knife at a chef, the weapon carousels in front of his face before puncturing his flesh. Further on in the story, Mallory’s tragic childhood is played out in a sitcom style where her grunting, perverted father’s sickening suggestions, are played to a backdrop of candid laughter. What makes this really striking is not the incestuous, fucked up actions of the characters, but the reactions of the audience. We are the fucked up ones.

This reflection is intensified by the use of different cinematic styles, likening to an agitated child switching between channels. It flicks through to black and white, cartoon, sitcom styles and newsreels, telling their story on all platforms of media. Stylistically, it merges the scenes together in a psychedelic trip of a film, full of hazy visions and artistic effects.

Adding to the appeal of the ’90s cult classic, Oliver Stone casts some of Hollywood’s best actors. The butch Woody Harrelson plays the hard-faced rebel Mickey whilst Juliette Lewis stars as the child-like, stroppy Mallory. Tommy Lee Jones plays the excitable, unhinged prison warden, whereas the aforementioned Robert Downy Jr. is the journalist who cares for nothing but his TV career. He even puts his life on the line to film the escape of Mickey and Mallory from a riotous prison.

The film itself is artistic and poetic, from the cinematic visuals down to its dialogue with lines like, “There’s no death because you and I were angels”. It’s display of society shows that these murderers are maybe the result for our unhealthy interest in them.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpLKNclOtLg]

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