MovieChat Forums > Copycat (1995) Discussion > Daryll DID set the whole thing up

Daryll DID set the whole thing up

posted 18 years ago by acand187-1
6 replies | jump to latest

I must have watched a completely different movie from the people on this board. I've seen posts saying Daryll had contact with the copy cat guy, but he wasn't running the show. I believe he was.

From what I saw in the end, we see Daryll writing a letter to someone, and the voice over says something to the effect that the last guy got carried away and went overboard.

I got the impression that Daryll hired the copy cat killer to kill Helen, but the guy got too wrapped up in the killings, rather then just go for Helen, he went way overboard. It seemed to me Daryll was writing to someone else to get that guy to finish the job, hence, kill Helen.

It seemed to me Daryll wanted revenge because Helen says at one point in the movie it was her testimony that put him behind bars. Daryll did orchestrate it.

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[–] nd1433 17 years ago

Hmmmm, he did't as far as i can tell. Peter was a diciple of his as he saw it, Darryl gave him hints and tips to make him a more efficient killer/stalker etc. Peter was already seeking a way to fame like other serial killers and Helen being a top forensic psychologist that had put away a few killers in her time seemed like a sure way to fame if he killed her. Darryl did'nt want helen dead, in his mind he had a kind of love/respect for her, hence his line to another diciples of his at the end "You must be real glad that the lord spared Dr Hudson, the big guy moves in mysterious way, don'nt he"...

heal the past...live the present... dream the future...

[–] xx-scarlette-xx 17 years ago

That's the same as I gathered from the end of the movie. I thought it was fairly obvious that Daryll Lee was the one orchestrating the entire thing by training the other killers to go after Helen. I think it was implied like that last lines, about how the other went overboard but he now trusts this new guy to "finish the job" and the way the camera focuses on his creepy, knowing grin that it was his plan to go after Helen, and he'd been training Peter.

I think that's why the end of the movie is so creepy; because you know with Peter's death, it isn't going to end for Helen, that Daryll Lee is still there, pulling the strings to torture her. If he was just training serial killers, why would we care?

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[–] Kevinology_Rises 12 years ago

I disagree, I think Daryll saw Peter as his disciple but really he was just someone Peter admired. If he had simply been a tool to exercise revenge on Helen then he wouldn't have bothered with all the other copycat killings as well, I think Peter simply admired all serial killers and Daryll just happened to be one that was still alive. So he wrote to him and tried to find out more about him and his crimes so he could accurately recreate them. Daryll undoubtedly encouraged it but I don't think Peter was meant to be a trainee, if anything he fancied himself smarter than Daryll and said "This is where Daryll got sloppy" when recreating his attempted murder.

"All right, rock-paper-scissors for who has to tell the whore to leave."

[–] ambrosia-apples 11 years ago

I think that's why the end of the movie is so creepy; because you know with Peter's death, it isn't going to end for Helen, that Daryll Lee is still there, pulling the strings to torture her. If he was just training serial killers, why would we care?

There's a clue when Helen's giving that speech in the beginning. She says that it was a waste to spend 8 million dollars killing Bundy (why does it cost that much to kill someone?), that serial killers should be kept alive so we can study them.

Later, when she has the video conference with Daryll Lee, he mentions appeals on his death sentence.

With all Daryll Lee's behind the scenes manipulations, I think the movie is trying to show the error of Helen's thinking, just like the movie shows the error of M.J.'s thinking in that you should only shoot to wound, not to kill. In both cases, the women ended up being wrong - if you try to save the bad guy, he ends up killing more people.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] manram24 10 years ago

The ending shows he was yes. And how else would the copycat killer know word for word what Daryl said and did at the crime scene.

Y'know, I could eat a peach for hours