The film adaptation of American Psycho sparked outrage in 1999 – though reports of street protests were strangely exaggerated…

Published in 1991, American Psycho was arguably the most controversial novel of its era. Bret Easton Ellis’s withering story of a 1980s Wall Street investment banker and his seemingly endless appetite for violence provoked outrage, censorship, protests, and accusations of misogyny. It’s difficult to imagine, in a publishing sector decimated by the internet, something as archaic as a book creating quite such a sensation today.

American Psycho was widely considered so violent as to be unfilmable, so when news broke that it was to be adapted into a film as the 1990s ended, the reaction was surprise and yet more outrage. Pressure groups condemned the film before its script was written; one lawyer threatened to sue its production company if it received an Nc-17 rating rather than an R. While the film was in post-production,...