Possible spoiler here but perhaps not. Good piece but clearly a variation on the theme of Patrick Hamilton's 1929 play Rope (also a 1948 Hitchcock film)and the 1959 film Compulsion (based on the 1957 novel Swoon by Meyer Levin) - both of which were inspired by the notorious 1924 US murder case of Leopold & Loeb - highly intelligent U. of Chicago students who murdered 14-year old Bobby Franks. The Meaning of Death quite effectively uses similar, but spurious, 'intellectual' and philosophical motivational themes.
Review of The Meaning of Death: Part 1
