Hollywood Keeps Casting Hot Serial Killers... And We Seem to Like It

Fans are swooning over the handsome stars portraying reprehensible murderers — and there's a psychological reason why

- MOLLY MCGUIGAN

Zac Efron. Penn Badgley. Evan Peters. Michael C. Hall. What do all of these actors have in common? Well, for one, they’re attractive men who have garnered sizable fanbases from high-profile projects. They’ve also all played serial killers. “Do you have anything to say to the people out there who say they want to date Joe despite the minor flaw of murdering people?” Stephen Colbert once asked Badgley about the public’s overwhelming response to his fictional character on You, who kills over a dozen people on the Netflix series. “I struggle greatly with the conflict of playing such a guy and him being partly so likable and people having such a, as we say, thirsty response to him,” he replied.

The presence of hot serial killers on TV isn’t a new phenomenon —