Psychopaths…they’ll charm you, manipulate you, then ruin your life. But, not all of them with a gun or a knife. In this extra-ordinary documentary, suspected psychopath Sam Vaknin goes in search of a diagnosis…was he born without a conscience?
“Making a movie with a psychopath,” declares I, Psychopath’s director Ian Walker, “is a little like poking a snake with a stick.” Unwittingly, the film-maker becomes a textbook victim.
Joined by Vaknin’s long-suffering but ever-loyal wife Lidija, the threesome embark on a diagnostic road trip to the world’s top experts in psychopathy in which Vaknin (and his wife) undergo a battery of rigorous psychological tests and neuroscientific experiments. He is the world’s first civilian to willingly seek a diagnosis for psychopathy.
The former corporate criminal turns out to be a way better psychopath than any of them imagined. When things don’t quite go his way, Vaknin turns on the Director, unleashing vicious displays of verbal abuse which show the psychopath in ‘bullying mode” and make for some of the most disturbing moments in the film.
By the end, Walker almost calls it quits on his own film rather than spend another day with its main subject.
I Psychopath Press Kit 83.pdf