Murder By Numbers

"In all my films I try to maintain a moral ambiguity, an exercise which is more perilous in American cinema, where the boundary between good and evil cannot generally be crossed" (Barbet Schroeder). This film looks precisely at the nature of evil, on its birth and its motivations, and questions the photofit of a killer and all the clichés that go with it. The vision of the "bad guy" is overturned giving way to the Machiavellian plan of the two students thirsting after thrills. In Schroeder's eyes, the theme of the motiveless crime is universal. What he was interested in was "looking into the sources of evil and seeing how evil permeates into the heads of these intelligent, respectable, well-brought-up young boys, who are bored with their parents who, nevertheless do everything for them. Taken separately, there is nothing special or diabolical about them. It is their friendship which encourages the intrusion of the Devil into their souls" (Barbet Schroeder).