This Day in Horror History: NATURAL BORN KILLERS Opened in 1994
Mike Sprague
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On this day in horror history, director Oliver Stone’s notorious serial killer flick Natural Born Killers with Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., and Tommy Lee Jones was unleashed into theaters back in 1994.
While the film is based on an original screenplay by Quentin Tarantino – and he receives a story credit – he has disowned the film due to the fact that that Stone, writer David Veloz, and producer Richard Rutowski heavily revised his work.
Notorious for its graphic violence and for inspiring “copycat” crimes, the film was a box office success, snagging over $50M on a $34M budget. It was named the eighth most controversial film in history by Entertainment Weekly in 2006.
A controversial look at the way the media portrays criminals, the film is rated R for extreme violence, graphic carnage, shocking images, strong language, and sexuality. It stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as two serial killers who become tabloid-TV darlings, thanks to a sensationalistic press led by Robert Downey Jr. The press reports the pair as they go on a 52-people killing spree.
The film sports a 46% approval rating over on Rotten Tomatoes with a Critics Consensus that reads: Natural Born Killers explodes off the screen with style, but its satire is too blunt to offer any fresh insight into celebrity or crime — pummeling the audience with depravity until the effect becomes deadening.
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