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Matt Glasby

This is the latest instalment in our ongoing From the Vault feature series, in which we reflect on culturally significant movies celebrating notable anniversaries.
Released 30 years ago this month, Natural Born Killers remains the most provocative film of Oliver Stone’s uncompromising career.
Rejected by its writer, decried by the media, even banned in some countries, his violent satire more than earned its place on Entertainment Weekly’s 2008 list of the 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever.
Based on a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, but heavily rewritten by David Veloz, producer Richard Rutowski and Stone himself, on the surface it is a familiar tale of lovers on the run.


We have seen it all before in films such as They Live by Night (1948) and True Romance (1993), another Tarantino original. But this time our heroes, Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory Knox (Juliette Lewis), are unrepentant mass murderers, and the film’s over-the-top aesthetic matches their excesses.
After a challenging shoot for Heaven & Earth (1993), Stone intended to make a straightforward action film, “something Arnold Schwarzenegger would be proud of”, he said on the DVD extras.
However, because of the breakdown of his second marriage, and his growing obsession with rolling news coverage of cases involving OJ Simpson, Rodney King, and the siege in Waco, Texas, it quickly morphed into “a vicious, cold-hearted farce”, he told Emanuel Levy.
The story is a simple one, following Mickey and Mallory as they drive along America’s Route 666 (now Route 491) killing people. After being sent to prison for crimes they very much did commit, they escape during an interview with sleazy TV journalist Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jnr).
What is remarkable is the way the film is shot and edited to create a kind of sensory overload. There are almost 3,000 cuts, whereas most films have around 700, and no stylistic tic is left untried.

Stone, cinematographer Robert Richardson and editors Hank Corwin and Brian Berdan combine full-colour, filtered and black-and-white footage with subliminal inserts, animation, newsreel, adverts, vox pops, back projection – even a sequence at Mallory’s childhood home that plays like a sitcom.
It is exhausting, exclamation-mark cinema designed to overwhelm. On that basis, Natural Born Killers is extremely effective.
The soundtrack – compiled by Stone and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, who would go on to win an Oscar for the score for The Social Network (2010) – is a clever mix of old masters (Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith) and newer iconoclasts (Rage Against the Machine, L7, Marilyn Manson).
The casting pulls off a similar trick. Harrelson was best known for playing the slow-witted Woody in TV’s Cheers, but he is magnetic as the despicable Mickey. Lewis, who was already carving out an impressively offbeat career in indie cinema, is even better, turning from abused teen to avenging outlaw on a dime.
They are joined by Downey Jnr (complete with terrible Australian accent), Tommy Lee Jones and Tom Sizemore, all playing heightened versions of abusive men in power.
Because these secondary characters are so unrelentingly repellent, the only people to root for are the two leads. We even see a teenager admitting, “If I were a mass murderer, I’d be Mickey and Mallory.”


The way the violence is presented invites such complicity. During the opening shoot-out at a diner, Mickey waves a gun at the waitress in front of the camera. When he pulls the trigger, it feels like we are doing it too. It may be exciting, but it is a seriously mixed message. Is the film colluding in the very thing it seems to condemn?
Upon release, critics were outraged and Tarantino hated it so much he could not watch it all the way through.
It was also implicated in a series of copycat crimes, the most infamous of which was the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the US state of Colorado, whose teenage perpetrators used the code NBK, an initialism for Natural Born Killers, in their planning.
It is easy to see why the film might connect with the disenfranchised and damaged. It is a work of real power, but scant meaning; less a coherent statement than a semi-crazed rant at the awful state of, well, everything, especially the media. Indeed, rarely has so much been employed to say so little.
Gale calls his brand of tabloid programme making “junk food for the brains” and is frequently intercut with images of the devil. Mickey tells him, “Killing you and what you represent is … a statement. I’m not a hundred per cent sure exactly what it’s saying but, you know ….”


The problem is, the film is just as confused.
Stone’s experiential assault may have seemed revolutionary at the time, but using mass-media techniques to criticise the emptiness of mass media does not feel quite so clever these days.
After the initial sugar rush wears off, it is like being repeatedly bludgeoned with a cartoon sledgehammer, canned laughter and all.
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1 of the most controversial films ever, Natural Born Killers at 30 still shocks the senses

Woody Harrelson in a still from Natural Born Killers (1994). Photo: Warner Bros.

Woody Harrelson (left) and Juliette Lewis in a still from Natural Born Killers. The 1994 movie remains the most provocative film of Oliver Stone’s career and one of the most controversial movies ever. Photo: Warner Bros

Robert Downey Jnr (left) and Woody Harrelson in a still from Natural Born Killers. Photo: Warner Bros

Tom Sizemore and Juliette Lewis in a still from Natural Born Killers. Photo: Warner Bros

Woody Harrelson in a still from Natural Born Killers. Photo: Warner Bros

A still from Natural Born Killers. Photo: Warner Bros

The Village at 20 finds the bleak, daring M. Night Shyamalan thriller has aged well

Bryce Dallas Howard in a still from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village (2004), which remains one of his very best films. Photo: Touchstone Pictures

Adrien Brody in a still from The Village (2004). Photo: Touchstone Pictures

Director M. Night Shyamalan (left) and William Hurt on the set of The Village. Photo: Touchstone Pictures

Joaquin Phoenix in a still from The Village (2004). Photo: Touchstone Pictures.

Bryce Dallas Howard in a still from The Village (2004). Photo: Touchstone Pictures

The Notebook at 20: how Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams shot to stardom in 2004 romance

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in a still from The Notebook. Ironically for a romance, they had to overcome a mutual dislike. Equally ironic, they fell in love after making the 2004 romance, which shot both of them to stardom. Photo: New Line Cinema

James Garner (left) and Gena Rowlands in a still from The Notebook. Photo: New Line Cinema.

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in a still from The Notebook. Photo: New Line Cinema.

Director Nick Cassavetes (left) and Gena Rowlands on the set of The Notebook. Photo: New Line Cinema.

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in a still from The Notebook. Photo: New Line Cinema

The Babadook at 10: supernatural horror film Stephen King called ‘deeply disturbing’ is unafraid to tackle a taboo

Essie Davis (top) as Amelia and Noah Wiseman as Samuel in a still from The Babadook (2014).



Essie Davis (left) as Amelia and Noah Wiseman as Samuel in a still from The Babadook (2014), a horror film that poses questions no one dare ask.



Essie Davis as Amelia Vanek in a still from The Babadook (2014).

Noah Wiseman (left) as Samuel and Essie Davis as Amelia in a still from The Babadook (2014).

Noah Wiseman as Samuel in a still from The Babadook (2014).

Essie Davis (top) as Amelia and Noah Wiseman as Samuel in a still from The Babadook (2014).

Shaun of the Dead at 20: how Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s zombie comedy prefigured today’s infantilised pop culture

Simon Pegg (front) in a still from Shaun of the Dead. Photo: Rogue Pictures

Simon Pegg (left) as Shaun and Nick Frost as Ed in a still from Shaun of the Dead. The 2005 “Britpop film” spawned a new genre, the romantic zombie comedy, or rom-zom-com. Photo: Rogue Pictures

(From left) Dylan Moran, Kate Ashfield, Simon Pegg and Lucy Davis in a still from Shaun of the Dead. Photo: Rogue Pictures.

Director Edgar Wright (left) and Mark Donovan on the set of Shaun of the Dead. Photo: Rogue Pictures.

Nick Frost (left) and Simon Pegg in a still from Shaun of the Dead. Photo: Rogue Pictures.

Kate Ashfield (front) and Simon Pegg in a still from Shaun of the Dead. Photo: Rogue Pictures.

In 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet twist the way memories work

Jim Carrey (left) and Kate Winslet in a still from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in a still from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This flawed but fascinating film puts a deliciously surreal twist on love.

Kate Winslet as Clementine and Jim Carrey as Joel in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Jim Carrey as Joel in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Elijah Wood (left) and Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Jim Carrey as Joel and Kate Winslet as Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Carrey was recovering from the break-up of a relationship when he made the film.

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Starring Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as a pair of mass murderers, Oliver Stone’s 1994 movie has been implicated in a series of crimes


Released 30 years ago, Natural Born Killers – starring Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis – remains the most provocative film of Oliver Stone’s career and one of the most controversial movies ever.


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