This genere, the “descent into madness” plot, is usually what’s defined as a cautionary tale. To be effective in it’s goal the protagonist is usually written as a character to which the reader can only partially identify, at worst, or who’s seen by the reader as “not me”. Some examples of such characters can be Don Quijote, Orlando, Achilles and so on. The non identifiability is a fundamental element for the reader to focus on what’s wrong in the protagonist’s way of behaving and to learn to avoid such behaviors himself.

In this framework both movies fail that part of the audience that identify with the protagonists.