On March 5, 1995, Sarah Edmundson and her boyfriend Ben Darrus, who had watched the 1994 movie Natural Born Killers repeatedly while on acid, went on a shooting spree, killing one person and injuring another at random stops along a stretch of Oklahoma highway. The two shooters were tried and convicted, but the family of Patsy Byers, one of the victims, also filed a civil lawsuit against the movie studio Warner Brothers and everyone associated with the making and distributing of the film, including its director Oliver Stone.

Stone’s film graphically depicts the exploits of a boyfriend-and-girlfriend team of serial killers. Stone insists that he intended the film as a parody of the news media’s fascination with violent crime; critics say the film itself glorifies serial killers. However one views the film, writes Susan J. Douglas in...