American Psycho ending explained: Are any of Patrick Bateman’s crimes real? 

Based on Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 novel, the 2020 film American Psycho follows the duality of Patrick Bateman (played by Christian Bale) who is a wealthy investment banker in New York by day and a psychopathic serial killer, at least he claims to be, by night.

The cult classic horror film garnered a lot of fans with its impressive cast list, including Jared Leto, William Defoe, Reese Witherspoon, Justin Theroux, and Chloe Sevigny. Another thing that the film also garnered is questions about the reality of the events that happened throughout the film.

Bateman, while he had confessed to torturing and murdering victims, had become increasingly confused between what was real and what was fantasy as the movie progressed. It has made him an unreliable narrator, which raises the question of if he did all those grotesque misdeeds he confessed to and whether he is the serial killer that he claims to be.

The American Psycho's ending is intentionally ambiguous, but the film's director essentially said that Patrick Bateman is a killer and one of the murder scenes in the film is real. Which of them are real and which are merely a sick fantasy, however, remains unknown.

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American Psycho ending explained: Is Patrick Bateman the killer he claims he is?

The discussion about the possibility that everything that happened in the film, all the violence and killings, are all in his head started from the sequence when an ATM told Bateman to "Feed Me a Stray Cat."

Until that point, it's easy to believe that Bateman is getting away with murder. His murderous rampage is shown in grotesque detail at the beginning of the film—he's killed a colleague, a homeless man, a dog, and s*x workers, among others.

However, the absurd ATM scene gives the viewers another perspective, that Bateman's narration of events has taken a hallucinatory turn. It lends credence to the theory that his murders are hallucinations and that much of the events in the film represent pure fantasy.

That could explain American Psycho's ending. However, the film's director, Mary Harron, had vetoed any conclusion that the film was just an overplayed hallucination.

Christian Bale is Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (Image via Ian Gavan/Getty Images)

In a 2013 interview with Charlie Rose, Harron said that she never intended for viewers to believe the ending explained that Patrick Bateman was never a killer.

"One thing I think is a failure on my part is people keep coming out of the film thinking that it's all a dream, and I never intended that. All I wanted was to be ambiguous in the way that the book was. I think it's a failure of mine in the final scene because I just got the emphasis wrong. I should have left it more open-ended. It makes it look like it was all in his head, and as far as I'm concerned, it's not."

Hence, confirming Bateman did kill someone or some people. But with his delusions playing out on screen, his kill count might be lower than he believes.

Besides his trouble differentiating between his actual murders and his hallucinations, another sign that Bateman's kill count is much lower is the fact that he was never on the NYPD's radar. While it's easy to believe that he could kill random homeless people and s*x workers and get away with it, in the scene where he had a shootout with cops and blew up a cop car, police should have been hot on his heels. However, they're not.

Bateman himself seems unsure of how many people he has killed in the last scenes of American Psycho. He says he's murdered 20 people, or maybe 40, again showing his failure to discern which crimes are real and which are only his sadistic fantasy.

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Did Bateman murder Paul Allen in American Psycho?

In a confusing turn of events, when Bateman returned to the apartment where he supposedly killed Jared Leto's Paul Allen, there was no body to be found and the crime scene was spotless. It begs whether or not his murder of Paul was real or a mere hallucination.

While Harron noted that Patrick Bateman did kill someone, that someone is Paul Allen or not is intentionally ambiguous. In the later part of American Psycho, Bateman confesses to his lawyer about killing Paul. However, his lawyer said that him killing Paul is unlikely because he saw the guy in London.

The thing is, his lawyer didn't even recognize him and he has mistaken Bateman as someone else, so how can he be sure that it was Paul he saw in London? Mistaken identity has been a driving factor in the film, like when Paul mistook Bateman for Marcus Halberstram.

Jared Leto is Paul Allen in American Psycho (Image via Christopher Polk/Getty Images)

Three likely scenarios that could explain this in the American Psycho ending. First, Bateman could have killed Paul for real and the reason his body is missing is that the apartment's owner had disposed of it to avoid marring their property's value in case it gets out in public.

It could be another case of mistaken identity. Bateman could have killed someone in the apartment, but instead of the real one, it was someone else that he mistook for Paul. It wouldn't be the first time that Bateman made mistakes with his colleagues for other employees.

Paul's murder in American Psycho could have just been a figment of his imagination, fueled by his jealousy of the guy. His mental state has been deteriorating and the case could be just another delusion.

But, whether Bateman killed Paul Allen in American Psycho doesn't matter in the end, because no one believes him and his world continues like nothing happened.

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Where are the bodies Bateman supposedly killed in American Psycho?

The apartment where Bateman killed Paul Allen in American Psycho, and where he supposedly stashed the bodies of people he killed, was spotless. When he returned to the apartment, the real estate agent who was there to meet a potential tenant thought Bateman was her 2 o'clock appointment. But when he admitted he was not who she thought he was, the agent sternly told him to leave, not make any trouble, and never come back.

The strange interaction between Bateman and the agent added to the fact that the apartment, with a lovely view of Central Park, is one of the most sought-after properties in New York hints at the whereabouts of the bodies that once littered the apartment.

A likely explanation is that the owners have quietly taken care of the mess instead of calling the police. Since it is one of the most expensive properties in the area, the owners understandably want to have a new tenant to pay the rent. It also fits the theme of the film where people are more concerned about projected affluence and public perception. It's unlikely for them to report the bodies found in the apartment as it would devalue the property.

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The film has blurred the lines between madness and sanity and, in Patrick Bateman's perspective, between actual events and delusions. It's one of American Psycho's allure, with its ambiguous ending remaining a hot topic for debate over 20 years since it came out.

American Psycho is available to watch on different streaming platforms like Netflix, Apple TV, and Prime Video in select countries.