Fans Are Disturbed via the Oddball Ken and Barbie Killers in 'Stay Close' — What Inspired Them?

Jan. 6 2022, Published 5:46 p.m. ET

Harlan Coben's restricted thriller collection Stay Close is taking the Netflix platform via typhoon. Fans live for the juicy drama, thrilling twists, and distinctive characters. Based on Harlan Coben's 2012 novel of the identical name, the tale follows three unsuspecting people residing in Blackpool, England — a suburban football mom, a photojournalist, and a detective — whose lives are upended by means of the reigniting of a past incident. The lives they these days are living are facades simply waiting to come undone.

Among the candy-coated facades featured on the sequence is the one held by way of eerily preppy couple Ken (Hyoie O'Grady) and Barbie (Poppy Gilbert) — aka the "musical theater murderers." That's right, those two oddballs sing and dance, distracting their prey, before brutally murdering. Naturally, they accomplish this with out a hair misplaced.

Their pearly white smiles and blameless airs handiest make these hitmen — who're employed to kill witnesses and Nosey Nellies snooping around the show's lacking particular person instances — creepier. Ken and Barbie are simplest further incentives not to bully the bizarre theater children in high school, people.

So, what inspired this twisted, murderous duo? Harlan Coben has answers.

What inspired the Ken and Barbie killers in 'Stay Close'?

Understandably, many viewers connected the Ken and Barbie killers in Stay Close to the real-life "Ken and Barbie" serial killer duo: Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. The Canadian couple, known for his or her excellent seems, are notorious for raping and murdering at least three minors — together with Karla's little sister — in Toronto and Ontario circa the '90s. Though these two despicable monsters have the same identify, they don't seem to be the inspiration for Harlan's ruthless Ken and Barbie hitmen.

Harlan Coben divulged the place he found inspiration for the vile, almost campy killing duo in a commentary, as reported by Radio Times.

“At half-time in NFL soccer video games in the ’70s and ’80s there was group called Up With People, who would perform this truly healthy act,” he explained.“They would sing a lot of these Kumbaya-type songs and they had those pretend painted smiles on."

"I’m sitting there going, ‘There’s got to be extra at the back of the ones pretend painted smiles.’ So I decided, wouldn’t it's cool if two of them have been more or less psychotic killers?" Harlan continued.

Well, that's an extremely specific form of inspo, and we love it. He went on to discuss the contrast between Ken and Barbie and the rest of the cast, clearly well aware that not every viewer will "get" them.

“They are the moments in the display where you cross, ‘What the — the place are they going with this?’ I kind of like that. I feel Ken and Barbie keep us off stability a bit of bit. And but as outrageous as Ken and Barbie are there's something about them that feels grounded and practical,” he mentioned.

Though we aren't certain what world Harlan is living in to believe Ken and Barbie real looking, we for sure agree that they go away us scratching our noggins — not to point out shaking in our boots. In a atypical approach, Ken and Barbie even be offering a sense of comedian relief. But perhaps morbid comedy is an acquired style.

All 8 episodes of Stay Close are recently streaming on Netflix.

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