I Was A Teenage Serial Killer



A young 19-year-old woman with anger issues spends her time traveling around the country. But everywhere she goes she keeps running into these asshole men who either don’t respect her, or treat her like dirt. So what’s an angry teenager to do? Why, kill them of course! And she’s going to do so by any method she deems fit.



Well, I really wasn’t planning on it, but when I noticed the dates of the last two “I Was A Teenage___” films, I realized that I’d already started watching what I had by release date. So might as well keep going, right? Right.

Which means next up is I Was A Teenage Serial Killer, an American, independent, no-budget short-film by director Sarah Jacobson. Jacobson, sometimes referred to as “The Queen of Underground Cinema,” was a rather celebrated underground director and writer in the 90s, most well known for this film and Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore. With ‘underground’ films not being anything I truly focus on, I can’t comment much on her impact. But I do appreciate her apparent DIY approach to film-making. An approach that feels very evident here. Because while I see the appeal the film has with many viewers, the methods used to make it are probably going to seem overly rough to general audiences.



For starters though, the film clearly is meant to have a very strong appeal towards women. In a way that’s meant to let them relate to the situations and resulting anger. Kinda similar to other films where some geeky guy(s) get revenge on those who belittle them or put them down. Something like Revenge of the Nerds comes to mind. Except in this case it involves a young woman getting (bloody) revenge on every white,  assholish male she comes across. It’s just a little more extreme than other films because, you know, people die. The truly sad part though, is that a lot of women have still probably run across most of the scenarios in their lifetime. Like, odds are, they’ve probably met at least one or more of these cavemen at some point or another. A fact which is both very depressing while simultaneously making Mary (our heroine, whose name I don’t think is ever mentioned in the film, but it is in the credits so maybe I just missed it) a very relatable character (just maybe without the murder part.)

The first schmuck is some dipshit who didn’t want to be tied down to his wife and kids anymore, so he tries to coax young Mary to run away with him. Older guy preying on a younger girl? Mary doesn’t like that and leaves him a bloody mess in a dump yard.



The second (her brother, so claim the credits), prattles on and on (and ON) about how she should act and live her life. How she should dress differently. How she should wear her hair. How she shouldn’t wear her hair. How that nose ring is a bad idea. How she should just settle down already and pop out a couple babies…. She rids the world of his drunken, hillbilly ass with rat poison.


Couldn’t have happened to a nicer hick.

Dude #3 she initially seems to get along with. At least enough to go back to his place and partake in the nasty, in a scene that I think is more gratuitous than any of the Witchcraft films I have yet to watch, combined. Except he sneakily removes the condom mid-coitous. Which means she finishes and he doesn’t, on account of her strangling him during the act. Then she shoves a banana in his mouth, which I’m sure isn’t meant to be symbolic in any way whatsoever.


I wonder if he died thinking it was worth it?

Victim #4 makes the ill-fated decision of catcalling Mary after bidding goodbye to his own girlfriend for the afternoon. Then he makes it worse by reprimanding her for not knowing how to take a ‘complement.’ She was nicer to him than most. She just shoved him out into traffic.


He definitely didn’t think it was worth it.

Then Mary stumbles across a murder in progress. Some guy with a knife is butchering another guy in an alleyway. Mary, seeing a fellow comrade, decides to assist the killer in the cutting process. The knife guy is Henry, another serial killer who just so happens to also be pissed off at all the assholish white males of the world because they’ve teased him his entire life.

Mary is now officially in love and they enter their own version of domestic bliss. They drink coffee together while reading the morning paper. They cook dinner together. And they sever a man’s penis while exchanging kisses over his twitching body. Things can’t get much better…. Until Henry brings a woman home and tells Mary that he’s already killed the woman’s boyfriend. But hey, they can kill this chick together, because he doesn’t necessarily want to kill only annoying white dudes… But his feeble attempt to placate her falls on deaf ears. For in Mary’s eyes Henry has lied to her about his true intentions, which to her is an unforgivable sin. So, heartbroken, she beats him to death with a Dust-Buster and lets his would-be victim go.



The final guy she comes into contact with, known only as the “Asshole Drug Dealer”, spots her moping in front of a shop and has the decency to ask her what’s wrong. But when she starts to tell him her life story, how she’s already killed 19 people and how it all started because her father tried to sexually abuse her, he ruins any goodwill he may have earned by suggesting that she may have brought the abuse on herself because of how pretty she is. Mary threatens him with a broken liquor bottle, but ultimately decides that continuing to tell her story is more empowering than murdering his dumb ass. Mary then walks away, leaving the “Asshole Drug Dealer” (again, his official name) alone to ponder his near death experience.



So clearly the film has several things to say about sexism, violence and rage. Sometimes stating them overtly, sometimes more subtly. And I can both see and appreciate that. What I’m not sure other people are going to appreciate so much though, is the film’s rather…shall we say unrefined presentation. And I do understand that in many cases the film is supposed to look and sound a certain way. But a lot of it will likely still be rather jarring to general audiences.

The film itself, shot in black and white, is often very grainy and very rough looking. Which I’m sure was 100% a stylistic choice. In fact there’s one point in particular where the film adds in some vertical white lines that I KNOW is a stylistic choice. And since, for the most part anyway, the camerawork is fine, it’s not something that really hinders the film. If anything it helps by making it look and feel more gritty.



No, the main issue I had was with the sound. Now the songs featuring the band Heavens to Betsy? Those are fine, and often relate to the film. But everything else can feel…eh, a little jarring, actually. For reasons I am not privy to (but that I suspect probably all point back to the film’s no-budget nature and the clear lack of talent in the majority of the cast) most, if not all, of the film’s dialogue appears to have been dubbed. Now, sometimes the syncing of this dub ends up matching the visuals just fine. But many times it does not, which can be very discombobulating. And since it doesn’t sound like they had the best equipment to work with, even when the sound does match up just fine with the lip movements it can often be hard to hear what’s being said. Either due to something like background noise, or because it’s so low or garbled it’s just hard to make out. So unless they have flawless hearing I suspect most of those who plan to watch this are going to have to jack the volume way up if they ever hope to figure out what’s going on.

On the plus side though, there are some humorous moments too. Like the Charlie Brown whomp whomp whomp sounds that frequently cut in and out of her brother’s dialogue. So you kinda have to take the good with the bad.

So, while I can’t really tell you that I really “liked” I Was A Teenage Serial Killer, I can tell you that I can appreciate the film for what it is. I can see what the filmmakers were going for, and I understand why it was made and why they did what they did. So I can understand why this is something that might speak to people and have a cult following. That said though, I can also see how the rough nature of the audio and aesthetics would turn off most general audiences. So I can really only recommend this to those who already like things like short films, or underground or feminist cinema. But hey! If you feel like branching out into any of those categories this film probably isn’t a bad place to start. At less than 26 minutes long it’s a pretty brisk little movie. And while some of the dialogue may be out of sync, many of the situations are pretty humorous in a dark, kinda gruesome way. So if you appreciate that sort of thing you might even get a couple chuckles out of this. I do think it warrants at least one watch. But if none of that sounds like your thing, then you can safely skip it.

I Was A Teenage Serial Killer is available on a variety of streaming services.

I Was A Teenage Serial Killer is also available on Bluray as part of the The Films Of Sarah Jacobson: Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore + I Was a Teenage Serial Killer collection.

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