Apt Pupil

Like the Stephen King novella on which, the film gets its most implausible turn out of the way very swiftly as small-town high schooler Todd Bowden (Renfro) recognises mild-mannered immigrant retiree Arthur Denker (McKellen) as Kurt Dussander, formerly the commandant of a Nazi extermination camp now a fugitive war criminal. Todd threatens Dussander with exposure, but proposes not to turn him in to the authorities if the old man helps him with a nebulous school history project on the nature of evil by telling stories about his part in the Holocaust forcing him to share disturbing stories of what it was like working at Nazi extermination camps and how it felt to participate in genocide.

Dussander, whom Todd sometimes dresses up in a theatrical costumier SS Nazi uniform purchases from a costume shop, is reluctant to dig up the past, but gradually begins to exert a snakelike fascination on the kid, clearly enjoying the opportunity of reliving his old crimes and perhaps getting his hooks into a fresh, young brain to warp a new generation of monster.