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Mac and Sylvia Randolph, known by the nickname of The Postcard Killers, are a duo of serial and later spree killers and adopted siblings madly in love with each other, serving as the main antagonists for the James Patterson book The Postcard Killers and its movie adaptation The Postcard Killings. They target couples all across Europe, mutilating and posing them based off notorious and historically iconic paintings and sculptures, to convey their passionate undying devotion to each other and the excruciating pain they suffered in their childhood.
Sylvia is portrayed by Naomi Battrick, while Mac is portrayed by Ruairi O'Conner.
History[]
Past[]
The siblings were born Simon and Marina Haysmith, while their parents being philanthropist Simon Haysmith, Sr. and Russian model Irina Smirnova, who was born in St. Petersburg. The family was esteemed, with significant contributions, Smirnova staying at home for her kids after she married. The senior Haysmith had a grandiose fixation on historic art, regularly having his kids go to art museums, showing them the paintings he found most symbolic of human experience and creativity, always telling them "art is a wound turned into light". But he hated them as children and insistent on their propriety and maturity instead of their innocence early on in their lives, regularly battering them when they even made little mistakes. Their mother likely was also a victim of this dangerous chaos, and the siblings were further traumatized when they personally found her dead, suiciding herself by hanging. They soon only had each other, which eventually grew into incest between the two of them, and when senior found out, he threw Marina, whom he regularly insulted with "devious, manipulative bitch", into boarding school. The brutality against Simon Jr. became so severe he was taken away by Child Protection. The climactic turn in the domestic war is when Simon Jr. was a personal key witness in senior's arrest for embezzlement and insider trading, landing senior permanently in prison. Fighting to get Marina out of boarding school, the two took a deal to go into Witness protection, under their new identities by the time the film starts. But their hate of senior and their exposure to art warped them in ambition and morals to the point they wanted to scream their life stories to get revenge and live the lives they felt entitled to. Using their aliases and the resources provided, stealing various receipts, and having more than one passport for alibis, they started a spree across Europe, the continent where all the art they were regimented, leaving murders, particularly couples, in their wake, poisoned, embalmed, mutilated, and posed, representing the art pieces they hope will send their message to the world they hoped to be a part of. Each time, they precede the murders with a postcard, with an eloquent quote not just foreshadowing the next two murders, but the art they'll be killing the next couple off of within a week.
The Postcard Killers[]
The movie starts with the posed murders of Kimberly & Thomas Stevensen, a newlywed American couple vacationing in London, Kimberly being the daughter of the main character, NYPD Detective Jacob Kanon. She's identified by her father in the morgue, who, along with his wife Valerie, is horrified by their mutilations: eyes pinned open, Thomas' severed arm in his mouth, Kimberly's arms both cut off below her elbows, still missing. They're even more livid when they find out a postcard was sent seven days before their daughter and son-in-law were murdered. Against legal and ethical codes, Kanon tracks the reporter of the story, who says a similar crime in Madrid also involved a postcard and mutilations, in that case with the couple's lips cut off. A new crime scene turns up in Munich, a woman dead with her finger in a man's stomach, the man's ears cut off and a pair of eyes suspended from the ceiling of the crime scene. After consulting with the German inspector on the case, Klau Bublitz, Kanon consults an art professor, who proves the killings are based off art. They tie Munich to The Incredulity of St. Thomas and the London attack to Saturn Devouring His Son. Kanon travels to Stockholm, where American-born reporter Dessie Lombard is stationed and has received another postcard. He tracks her down and, despite some original opposition, gets confirmation she received it, then warns the police the Randolphs have already made it to the capitol as well. Unfortunately, they're too late: the couple already lured in another traveling couple, Pieter and Nienke Holl, by sharing cynicism on the train with Pieter and pretending to ditch them but leaving their hat behind so Pieter would find them again once Nienke arrived by plane. At a club, they're invited to a private island where the Holls would be staying, but the police soon find the Holls, their original suspects, dead and posed as well, the ears of the man in Germany pinned to them as part of the staging. They quickly identify the art as Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, and soon after the Madrid murder as The Kiss. Regrouping, the squad soon catches the lovers/siblings and isolates each of them in interrogation. They're quick to come up with stories, their invitation to the island where the murders happened, how they met the Holls, lies about their travels from passports they have for fake IDs, even the stolen receipts, all to put together "alibis". Despite Kanon's furious refusal to accept the ruses, the couple are still let go. A couple killed in Amsterdam evoking The Scream are soon found having been murdered between London and Munich, with Kimberly's arms at the scene as identified by an heirloom ring she wore on the honeymoon, which is a horror for Kanon to see. When Kanon tries to tail the killers, they've already escaped, killing two concierges at the hotel they stayed at to slip out in their uniforms, before boarding another scheduled trip with new disguises and fake IDs they stored in a locker. A gay couple is later found dead in Brussels, evoking Dante and Virgil, the window of time between the postcard and the murder shorter. It all finally falls into place, their identities and motives, when they're rightly deduced to have been in Witness Protection, as well as when Valerie speaks to an old neighbor who doesn't arrest her for breaking into the Haysmith house, which reveals the children's, and speaking with senior while in prison, smugly brushing off the allegations and grandly proclaiming his obsessions while insulting the children. The siblings are then seen later in hotel room contemplating The Beheading of St. John the Baptist. Simon gets scared o what could happen to them and hopes they can end it so they'll live normal lives, but Marina says she'll be there for him all the way and that their immortalized crimes will guarantee that contingency for them, comparing the two to the artists they rip their crimes from. Kanon and Lombard finally figure out a way to stop their crimes: letting their message be heard. Lombard posts a report about her time during the investigation with Kanon and the man she's seen him as, while elaborately writing the intended message of abuse turned to endless love of the couple with the added lie that Kanon "inspired" that realization during the investigation. The siblings respond by sending postcards to all the cities they killed in with the message "we are reborn". Marina convinces Simon to try one final murder to seal their crimes for good. A fake-out of them not traveling to Russia is the opportunity they need to run Kano and Lombard off the road. As Kanon flags down a truck, Lombard, begging to be spared and let go, is abducted by the couple, who proclaim their love and vendetta. Marina says she likes Lombard, and it's apparent she's their final intended victim, who they intend to kill in the snow to evoke Reclining Nude. But Kanon arrives just in time, gun aimed at the two murderers. Marina taunts Kanon about how open his daughter was to the siblings during the standoff Kanon hears none of it, and just as Simon dies for their own gun and shoots Kanon in the shoulder, Kanon shoots Simon in his stomach. Marnia screams for him and drags him off int the snow, saying they're run to spend eternity together. SImon died from the shot, Kanon later admitting he let Marina go because she couldn't run far in the snow without freezing to death. However, a call to senior saying "Hello there, father. Do you remember me?" implies Marina is still very much alive, with an intention for a final vengeance, before the movie officially ends.
Victims[]
- Anthony and Donna Santos (representing The Kiss by Rodin)
- Kimberly and Thomas Stevensen (representing Saturn Devouring His Son by Goya)
- Unidentified white man and black woman (representing The Scream by Munch)
- Unidentified white man and black woman (representing The Incredulity of St. Thomas by Caravaggio)
- Pieter and Nienke Holl (representing Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss by Canova)
- Unidentified black male and white female concierges (possible artwork unknown; killed for uniforms to escape)
- Johannes Meltz & Andrin Rinker (representing Dante & Virgil by Bouguereau)
Gallery[]
