One of the attractions of The Matrix, the film whose sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, opens in Britain next week, was its blending of fantasy and reality. A series of murders in the United States suggests some people have been unable to distinguish between the two.
Josh Cooke, a 19-year-old in Oakton, Virginia, owned a trenchcoat like the one worn by Neo, the character played by Keanu Reeves in the movie, and kept a poster of his hero on his bedroom wall. Then he bought a gun similar to the one used by Neo to fight evil.
In February, he shot his father and mother in the basement of their home and then called the police. His lawyers say he believed that he was living inside the Matrix.
The theme of the films is that computers have taken over the earth, although some humans exist in a computer-simulated world, battling to save humanity. "He's just obsessed with it," Cooke's defence attorney, Rachel Fierro, told the Washington Post.
The local prosecutor, Robert Horan, said: "I don't think the movie causes violence. Millions and millions of people have seen it and not killed anybody." Cooke will now be examined by a psychiatrist.
The Matrix seems to have spawned other imitators. Last week in Ohio, a woman was found not guilty of killing the professor whose house she rented, on the grounds of insanity. Tonda Lynn Ansley, 37, said she had had dreams which turned out not to be dreams. The local prosecutor said that, "in her warped perception", the film played a part in the killing.
In San Francisco in 2000, Vadim Mieseges, 27, killed his landlady, Ella Wong, and pleaded not guilty on grounds of insanity. The police who interviewed him said he had made "reference to being sucked into the Matrix".
The young man accused of taking part in last year's sniper attacks in the Washington area has also cited the film.
"Free yourself of the Matrix," wrote Lee Boyd Malvo, 18, one of the two defendants, in his jail cell.