Emmanuel Goldstein uses the online alias Cereal Killer in the 1995 film Hackers. Matthew Lillard plays the character, one of the hacker friends who gathers around Dade Murphy and Kate Libby.
The alias is a joke based on “serial killer,” replacing “serial” with “cereal.” That wordplay fits the film’s exaggerated, colorful portrayal of hacker subculture, which includes screen names, rollerblades, phone phreaking and dramatic visualizations of computer networks.
The character’s name also has a real-world connection. Emmanuel Goldstein is the pseudonym used by Eric Corley, publisher of the hacker magazine 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. Corley appears in Hackers as a radio host, while the fictional Cereal Killer is a separate character played by Lillard.
This creates a frequent source of confusion: Cereal Killer is not the film’s main villain and is not the same person as The Plague, the alias used by Eugene Belford. Jonny Lee Miller plays Dade Murphy, and Angelina Jolie plays Kate Libby, whose alias is Acid Burn.