Diana Chavdarova I came across SV's writings following online manipulation by a narcissist, like many others. I did find a lot of it credible, although I immediately got suspicious due to some instances where he seems to lose his "objectivity", and make claims such as "the universe is chaotic and intrinsically evil; my future looks dark", etc. I contacted him on FB and he'd respond to some of my messages - he'd ignore others, which raised my suspicion. Luckily for me, soon enough one of his groupies linked me to this film. How could have someone seen it, and still be a "groupie", is beyond me. Anyway, I spontaneously commented: "Lidja needs help!" - after which I was immediately deleted from SV's friend-list. Let this serve as a good lesson to me - I believed he did actually have some common sense.He looks like a desperate and distressed child, moreover, making such silly self-compromising mistakes. So, the answer to a commenter above is - no, a psychopath cannot unfortunately be self-aware.But, while typing all this, I keep thinking one thing: this person, Lidja, is with this thing now. And nobody does anything to help her??!!P.S. I totally agree with the comment of Shemzl. I did have the feeling the filmmaker was unnecessarily involved, and making himself an object of his film, along with Vaknin. However, this could serve as a further warning to the viewer - do not underestimate the suggestive power of manipulators.

sacbutt I would expect that "I, Psychopath" will take it's rightful place in the annals of scarumentary (crockumentary?) next to " Reefer Madness" sometime in the coming decade or so. OK, slightly (ever so) less lurid than the latter. (The score of '5' reflects it's entertainment value only)But Please. A director incapable of setting limits on his subject? Who is this "documentary" about? "For months afterwards, bits of Sam's taunts come back to haunt me"? What actually WAS the point of this 30 minutes-that-I-shall-never-retrieve? (Yes, I DID miss the first 30 minutes, thankfully) But really, is this a "beware, they're out there"?Or a "they live and they wonder about their life" (If so, we-e-e-ll, has Big Brother not already done this to death?? AND been taken off the airwaves?!)kinda effort?Or is this a self serving rehash of a-a-all those times that the mean boys were, well, mean, dressed up as a sycophantic attempt to capture a sound byte and be able to essentialise and dismiss as 'pathology' a complex interaction between the aberrant self (cos Vaknin = not a your most stable of tables) as 'self being viewed' by 'self assuming a nonjudgemental-but-nonetheless-emotionally-involved- stance' And what fresh hell is this?? Espousing the diagnostic test "PCL whatnot" as a definitive measure of Is He a Psychopath? Gaaaah! Strewth, what next, Phrenology as the Next Big Thing? Ech. Tiresome stuff. Pass me the librium, slap that whinging director, tell that silly man Vaknin "No, not allowed", his wife maybe to get some help with her self esteem issues and shame on you, ABC, for screening this programme without a "park your credulity here" disclaimer.

Shemzl Sam Vaknin, the subject of this documentary, we are told, has a high IQ (185!!!), a sense of humor, an irresistible charm, a fake doctorate, and a submissive-codependent doll of a wife. I saw no sign of the first three. Sam is nothing short of loathsome, with a reptilian quality that would send shivers down any normal spine. He is a sadistic and robotically methodical verbal thug who exalts in his handiwork as he reduces everyone around him to stammering nervous wrecks. His wife, Lydia, is a tragic, heart-wrenching, truly lovable figure. What she sees in this physically and spiritually repulsive putrid shell of a human being is beyond me. The moments with her were the strongest in the movie and Walker made a bad call of not pivoting the film around her demure presence. I hope she doesn't get her wish and have kids with Vaknin. She and her children deserve far better.But I harbor grave suspicions regarding the director of this "gem", Ian Walker. Clearly, there is no love lost between him and his protagonist, Vaknin. Equally clearly, we cannot trust him to be truthful and to avoid the kind of editing that borders on misleading the viewer.Consider Sam's allegedly forged academic degree. Whatever his shortcomings and repugnant traits, Sam is brutally and unflinchingly and invariably and unfailingly honest about himself, his disorder, and what a monster he is. Why would he lie about an irrelevant and minor topic like his academic degree? Throughout the film and in its closing 2 minutes Sam protests that he had attended a full-fledged university with campus, faculty and students; that he had submitted a doctoral dissertation (indeed, it can be found in the Library of Congress!); and that he has had to defend it. Walker than plucks a sentence out of context and adds it artificially to Vaknin's previous protestations to create the (patently false!) impression that Vaknin admits to having a fake doctorate!!!Or, consider this: Walker meticulously documents Vaknin's abusive raging outbursts. On many occasions, it is crystal-clear that Vaknin is reacting to off-camera taunting and ill-treatment by Walker. Walker even admits in his PR material to having "poked this snake with a stick". The film's logo is an image of Walker decapitating Vaknin! But Walker never shows us what he did to Vaknin - only what Vaknin did to him, ostensibly unprovoked. Walker uses clever, one-sided editing to achieve a highly unethical result: a misrepresentation of what happened, for sure!This is what I mean when I say that I cannot trust the seethingly hateful, resentful, and envious Walker to be an impartial guide to Vaknin's circumstances, conduct, and psyche.Shouldn't documentary filmmakers harbor at least a modicum of sympathy and compassion in order to avoid the voyeuristic pornography that most exposes become? Walker failed to skirt this particular trap. Hence 7 stars instead of 10.

hte-trasme This is a fascinating documentary about a fascinating subject -- a man who is -- or believes he is a psychopath, and whether his claims can be verified. Like good food for thought, it raises more questions than it answers: How can a psychopath be self aware enough to know and be curious about his psychopathy? Can he be faking being a psychopath? Would doing that make him a psychopath? It's so fascinating at least in part because we can get closer but never really arrive at these answers. It's a credit to the filmmaker that I wished it had gone on longer.Personal taste but I found myself wishing the focus were less on the implications of psychopathy in the business world and on general background, and on even narrower character study of Sam and his wife. The documentarian, though, is to be commended on his insight, self-reflection, and thoroughness in presenting a picture of such a difficult subject to capture. In the end I was left eager to know more about Sam what drives him, and disturbed by his pattern of behavior as well.