Review: I Am Not a Serial Killer: Definitely With Spoilers

If a movie doesn't live up to your expectations, if it goes in a direction you didn't want it to go, is it the film's fault or your own? If this movie were based on a book that you had never read and never heard of, but it just didn't follow a plot that you imagined it would use, then do you have the right to be crestfallen? Or should you just accept it for what it is?

I saw the trailer for I Am Not A Serial Killer during the height of my listening to true crime podcasts, most notably My Favorite Murder and Sword and Scale. While grappling with my own thoughts of why I love hearing stories about murder, while harboring a blood phobia, the trailer for this 2016 film made me smile widely upon watching it.



In the trailer scenes are edited together that paint the picture of a typical teenage outcast who's family owns a funeral home, but he's been clinically diagnosed as a psychopath. This throws a wrench into the once familiar equation. In the movies being a straight up psychopath makes you the bad guy, or at best, a tragic figure. This film might actually be making the psychopath the hero.

The teen in question, named John, played by Max Records of Where the Wild Things Are, looks like a Wiley Wiggins, Kieran Culkin, or Rory Culkin type. John goes through life saying morbid stuff to people, and being easy breezy in the family morgue, but when a string of unsolved murders plagues his Midwestern town he takes keen interest. John notices someone lurking about and tries to investigate. Maybe it takes one to know one?

This concept was really intriguing to me. I thought of all the dramatic possibilities; that a young kid, who is dangerously close to being a killer himself, will use his know-how to figure out the crime. Maybe he's even suspected of the murder since he's the town weirdo. Maybe his own lack of emotional attachment will get in the way of solving the crime, or maybe it will be to his advantage.

Right now you can watch I Am Not a Serial Killer on Netflix. I just watched it, and I am sadly underwhelmed. The main reason for this is the supernatural twist.

Here is where it gets really really spoiler-y:

Christopher Lloyd plays an old man named Crowley (is that name old-man-y enough for you?) who lives with his beloved wife next door to the funeral home that John lives in. In the trailer there are some indicators that Crowley's the killer, but there are more indicators that he is in danger (like saying how it's a great day to be alive while suspenseful music plays).

In the trailer the potential killer is presented as a man in a blue parka lurking about. In the film this idea comes to fruition. John thinks he's on to the killer because he keeps seeing that blue parka guy wondering around looking shady as hell. When John spies the guy awkwardly talking to Crowley, inviting himself ice fishing with him, John follows the pair to see what will happen. Later, the blue parka guy misses a good opportunity to chainsaw Crowley as he cuts a hole in the ice for him. He puts the chainsaw down, and then brandishes a knife while Crowley's back is turned. We all think this nice old man is toast, until Crowley spins around and somehow spears his own arm through the guy's chest! At first I'm thinking, ".....great... self... defense?" But we see from afar that Crowley rips the lungs out of him and possibly eats them. It's not clear exactly how it goes down, but it is definitely supernatural.

The truth is that Crowley is the killer! BUT he is some kind of supernatural alien beast who needs to feed on the organs and body parts of living people to repair aging parts of himself. Isn't that like Tooms from the X-Files?

This revelation, which happens pretty quickly in the film, was disappointing. I would have LOVED it if Crowley were just this freaky old serial killer - completely human - and John had to deal with realizing he A) bonded with this old man because they are alike in their psychopathy, further making him question his own potential to kill B) stop this old man from killing everyone in the neighborhood, and C) has to make sure the crimes aren't pinned on himself since he's so outwardly strange, unlike the kindly old man.

However, that is not exactly how it goes.

The rest of the film involves John following Crowley, unable to stop him from killing anyone because he's a frekin alien. John also has an absent father, a cynical sister, a nervous mother, a pretty girl who likes him, a bully who is unnecessarily menacing, and a therapist who is unrealistically cool. John has to deal with all of this while trying to outwit an alien being, and save the town.

What kills me is that at the start of the film, people are talking about how the victims looked like they were attacked by some kind of terrifying animal. John makes an astute comment that stories of werewolves and vampires were created because of serial killers. I have also heard this theory, and to elaborate more on the topic, people back in the Middle Ages couldn't conceive that a human could wreck so much havoc on random innocent people, therefore unseen mythical monsters were blamed, and the people who committed the heinous crimes were never stopped. The concept of a serial killer didn't exist until the 19th century. That being said, I hate that the killer ended up being a literal mythical beast. A cool reference to how depraved humanity can be was actually a telegraphed foreshadowing.

I wish I could say it was a tale of two psychopaths with one beating him at his own game. Instead one of them was an alien body-snatcher who fell in love with a human woman and would kill to stay alive for her. The other, a boy who's been convinced by his family, school, and doctor that he's a ticking time bomb, only to find out that despite his pervasive violent thoughts and the constitution to work in the morgue, he doesn't like hurting people at all. John ultimately learned that he has way more compassion for people than his diagnosis made him and others believe.

And I won't completely spoil the ending for you.

It's an interesting story. I can't get too mad at the director since the film is an adaptation from a novel of the same name. Then I just feel silly getting sore with the author of the book too. You can write whatever you want. It is what it is, it's just not what I expected.

If the movie I just pitched exists out there, let me know!

The Grim Sleeper : Gripping South LA for a Reign of 25 years

We can be thankful that Lonnie Franklin is in prison for murder. On May 5, 2016 a jury found the so called "Grim Sleeper" guilty of the murders of ten women over the course of 14 years. This was relevant news to me since I was captivated by the HBO documentary Tales of the Grim Sleeper nearly a year before this conviction. At the outset of the film, directed by Nick Broomfield in 2014, we are made aware that the Grim Sleeper had been captured in 2010 and was awaiting the conclusion of his trial. The evidence was damning and he had little to prove innocence in court. But for over two decades Lonnie Franklin seemingly lived without fear of being caught for coldblooded serial murder.


Lonnie didn't hide, he just lived in a world where someone like him can rule the streets.    

At the start of the film, Broomfield enters Lonnie Franklin's South Los Angeles, CA neighborhood, and is treated with hostility by his former neighbors. They are in the mindset that Lonnie is innocent, that he was of good character, and it was all simply unbelievable. Maybe he was framed. Maybe it was lazy detective work. After spending more time in this neighborhood, and interviewing women - who did not have positive interactions with Lonnie - these same friends started requesting private interviews.

Still from Tales of the Grim Sleeper with one of Lonnie Franklin's friends and Nick Broomfield.

In these interviews friends would confess that they thought Lonnie was strange. He was kinky with women, he had his vices. He took photographs of women in precarious or violent positions. Lonnie had a gun. He wore it in his front pocket and showed it to people. It was the same gun the police would later identify as the murder weapon for seven out of the ten of his victims.

All of this was revealed and heavily padded with excuses and sheepish apologies. "I'm not proud of it." they would say. Lonnie's friends were well aware of his perversions, and they relished in it at the time. They swapped dirty photos, they shrugged and laughed when they saw hand cuffs in his car, and harbored the knowledge that Lonnie had a special van for putting women in bondage. But he was just "into women."

180 photos of women were found in Lonnie's house. Of the ten bodies found, all of the victims photos were in his collection.

When Lonnie asked some of these men to clean this van - on a fairly regular basis - no one thought twice when the rug had a dark substance in it. Then they convinced themselves it was oil, but looking back on it, it came up too easy to be oil. They can't quite picture it now. It could have been blood.

Later in the film other friends resurface to tell their tales, and they become more cavalier. Some of them are former crack addicts who admit they helped destroy evidence or even found women for him (who would most likely be his murder victims). These men did it for the crack he was supplying. It didn't matter that the car was filled with bloody clothes and God knows what else, these men needed to burn it to a crisp and get paid. It didn't matter that the woman they picked up was being tortured by Lonnie right in front of them, they needed to get high.

Forget about going to the cops. In this neighborhood the distrust for the police and the police's own disdain for this community helped facilitate a man like Lonnie. This was the perfect place to be a serial murderer. Women were being killed, and the cops weren't taking the time to investigate. These were crack addicts and prostitutes, or women who might fit the profile if you glance at the color of her skin and the street sign her body was found near.

The Grim Sleeper's ten identified victims

There are many survivors who were sexually assaulted and tortured. Women who tell the tale do not often have a section of the story where they report the crime to the police. At the time they were hooking and or high, and extremely vulnerable to arrest for their own crimes. All they could do was escape from his clutches, run for safety and learn their lesson never to sleep with him again. Lonnie knew this. That's why he got away with it for so long.

Near the end of the film, some of Lonnie's friends are laughing about him as they did at the very beginning. No longer are they hushed and concerned, ruminating over how someone they knew was very likely a serial murderer. Now they are quite sure he did it, and they gleefully approach Broomfield to share their anecdotes. All of their personal evidence has been compiled and outed among themselves.

Instead of laughing about how Lonnie would always be in his front yard chatting with the neighbors - truly painting an suburban ideal - they were laughing about how much Lonnie hated crackheads. They chuckled about how it was his first wife's fault that he hated crackheads, because she was one herself. They smiled about how he would openly tell them he was "cleaning up" the neighborhood. They all knew what it meant, and they were cool with it.

Lonnie was finally captured because his son Christopher was arrested. Lonnie had been arrested many times before for various crimes, but a new policy enforced by the LAPD to collect DNA from all arrested persons was only in existence since 2004. Lonnie narrowly escaped it after being convicted of a felony in 2003.

His son's DNA was a partial match to the DNA found on all of the bodies. Christopher could only be a relative of the Grime Sleeper. Besides, he was too young to have murdered the women who were killed in the 1980s. Lonnie Franklin's DNA was a perfect match.

Lonnie was sloppy. His DNA was all over the victims. The most vulnerable members of the community were too afraid to come forward. It was clear that the police didn't take it seriously anyway. Survivors that did come forward to the police went through the rigmarole of reporting, only to be filed away despite the multitude of evidence (descriptions of his appearance, the bright orange Pinto everyone knew he drove, bullets from the gun he consistently used, rape kits with his DNA). The key word here is consistent because Lonnie barely tried to hide, but it took 25 years for him to be stopped.

It's terrifying to think of the unreported crimes that occur in neighborhoods like this all of the country. Imagine a place the cops won't touch, the victims are doubly powerless, and a person like the Grim Sleeper will meet you in the middle. 
 

The Jinx to Sooth Our True Crime-Loving Souls

In the wake of Serial's season one finale, and the Season Two premiere of True Detective we are so patiently waiting for in summer 2015, a gripping docu-series, The Jinx, is a welcome weekly curiosity.

The opening title sequence even mirrors that of True Detective Season One, with it's double exposures and sexy, silky dark imagery that hints at events to come, and a bluesy song with threatening animistic themes.

True Detective

The Jinx

The credits are a neat package that set the viewer up. It says, "I know what you're looking for and I know what you like."

Robert Durst punctuates his statements with hard blinks made with nearly his entire face. He finishes his statements with a kind of facial enter key.

Robert Durst interviewed by Andrew Jarecki

Durst is allowing his life, experiences, and odd ticks to be scrutinized. At his own request, Andrew Jarecki is interviewing Robert Durst for this six part series. Jarecki directed the 2010 film All Good Things, based on the mysterious disappearance of Robert Durst's wife Kathleen in 1982. This unfortunate event was only the tip of the iceberg for Durst's "bad luck." Jarecki's film doesn't cover all of the deaths surrounding Robert Durst. Of course Durst would want the world to hear his side, even if it uncovers more dirt.

The Jinx unfolds a story starting with Durst's most recent brush with death. In 2001 a body was found in a Galveston, Texas bay. The body was of Morris Black, who was the neighbor of an unfortunate looking mute woman and her brother-in-law (who were never in the same room at the same time). The "duo" had abandoned their apartment when Black's body was discovered, and all signs pointed to that room as the murder scene. Robert Durst, the millionaire real estate heir of New York was pinned as the one who resided in the apartment under a few assumed names. 

After this part of Durst's life is established, the decades move forward and back like waves. The non linear story telling works well here. We are given the information as we need it; dolled out in pieces so we can understand and appreciate each morsel more than the next. We learn about his troubled childhood, the disappearance of his wife, the beginning of their relationship, the night of her disappearance, Durst's inability to connect with Kathleen's family and friends, his abuse towards Kathleen, and then we wind back again to reveal the truth behind what happened that fateful night.

Robert Durst tells half confessions. He has an explanation for everything, for his lies and his motives. Never does he admit to killing Kathleen, but he confesses so much, maybe without knowing it. Robert openly admits to hitting Kathleen, and forcing her to have an abortion. The titular line is uttered here, that Durst thought he would be a "jinx" to his offspring. He labels himself.

Durst shockingly admits to lying to police immediately after Kathleen's disappearance. He added details like a glass of wine he had with a neighbor, or - more importantly - a phone call he claimed he made to Kathleen after she supposedly arrived in New York by train. Durst is flippant about the lies. He explains that it was simply to get the cops to leave him alone. It seemed he didn't understand that lying to the police would make it harder to find Kathleen. Maybe that wasn't his top priority. 

If Robert Durst wants us to believe he didn't kill Kathleen, a story that has sustained 33 years, he doesn't exactly know how to do it. By the virtue of his own psychopathy he lays out his shocking, blatant apathy towards Kathleen. 

Despite the neighbor denying Robert's story about their friendly drink back in '82, among other easily refutable statements, this did not seem to put a wrench in Durst's freedom. Robert's family appeared to work very hard to push this issue under the rug, and he was never convicted of murder. While Kathleen was missing, none even searched the house she was last seen in.

It was also very possible that a phone call supposedly made by Kathleen, the Monday after she was last seen, to her college to call out sick, was actually made by a close female friend of Durst's. Susan Berman was fiercely loyal and knew a thing or two about organized crime and PR. At the time Berman's claim to fame was a novel called Easy Street about her life as the daughter of a mobster. She almost exclusively spoke for Durst to the media during this time. Her story and persona are important to The Jinx, as many people touched by the crimes surrounding Robert Durst are wonderfully fleshed out in each episode.

I don't want to spoil too much....

Robert Durst's persona is a contentious one. Many people have a difficult time getting along with Durst, though he thrives with certain people (like the stepson of Susan Berman. who he may have murdered). Durst did a stint in prison for missing the court hearing for the 2001 murder of Morris Black. Photos of Durst in prison show him palling around with inmates, and I couldn't help but think of his unnerving comfort with all things criminal, and George Bluth Sr.

Many, many people are interviewed in The Jinx, and some may at first seem far removed, but Robert Durst's life infects in far reaching ways that lead a curious trail back to the center. Each new individual brings the promise of a twist or a connection, that makes the series riveting.

Omniscient narration doesn't come into play in The Jinx; the players tell their own stories. Though Kathleen's friends are interviewed singularly, their shared experience in trying to prove Durst's guilt creates a cohesive force; a resounding chorus of voices for Kathleen.

The reenactments in The Jinx are above and beyond the typical poor lookalikes who mime more than they act. It's cinematic, photographic, lush, and somber, creatively utilizing shadow and shallow depth of field to hide the features of the actors. Often shooting from the back of the head (gruesome sounding, I know) they hide distracting faces, and add a cerebral, thoughtful meditation on the individuals they represent.

The triple threat of visual anonymity.

There are only two episodes left to air in this six part series. Much like Serial, we know that the end of the series is most certainly final. Though Serial promises a sort of second season featuring a different topic, or how True Detective will start Season Two with a new cast (and hopefully some thin connection to Season One), The Jinx is truly one of a kind and I cannot foresee a legitimate sequel. But we will be crying for one.

The James Holmes Conspiracy: The Illuminati is the Answer to Every Question

Conspiracy theories can be fun or offensive, depending on how you look at them. They are either going to fall under the cheesy horror category, like Whitney Houston's death linked to satanism and the Illuminati; a harmless guilty pleasure. Or it could fall under the controversial, like the 911 conspiracy; the kind of thing you don't want to publicly admit you believe. In the case of James Holmes and his mass murder in an Aurora, CO movie theater, it was a surprise to me that anyone had a conspiracy theory on this to begin with.

Thrown together in August of 2012, Mark Howitt's The James Holmes Conspiracy, is a roughly edited, comical Power Point presentation with the ultimate goal of promoting the 2nd Amendment. I was duped into watching this because the doc was listed on a website with legitimate movies and TV shows. Howitt has a Youtube account full of documentaries he's made, and it looks like that's the venue they should remain in. Aside from hokey visuals used to drive points home, most of Howitt's footage is not even his own. It's a classic Youtube low-fi documentary. He conducts no interviews himself.  For five minute blocks at a time other footage is used, from shows like Dateline and FOX News, and I assume other documentaries which Howitt does not cite. Using news footage in a documentary is fine, but these were long unedited cuts. It appeared this was a rough draft, maybe even just the research stage, of his documentary.  Since it was made only a month after the shootings took place, it is clear there was a sense of urgency to produce it.

Logical progression...

In a nutshell, what Howitt is trying to prove about the Aurora Shootings is that the US Government and whoever controls the banks this week, wanted to accomplish three things: ruin the life of James Holmes, ruin the life of his father, Robert Holmes, and have an excuse to repeal the 2nd Amendment.

James Holmes was a "promising scientific candidate" in the field of neuroscience. The government logically wanted to snuff that candle, so they brainwashed him and endangered the lives of over one hundred people.

Robert Holmes created an algorithm that traces money back to it's source. He was scheduled to testify in the court case of the LIBOR banking scandal. In retaliation, Robert's son was brainwashed, and murdered 12 people, injured 58. As usual this was the best roundabout plan the Illuminati could come up with.

And while the Illuminati are working on their agenda, why not help the overwhelmingly liberal US government use this horrible event as a jumping point for gun law restriction?

Please take note that much of this has been said in complete sarcasm, as I do not think any of these scenarios are possible. If the government is so powerful, why didn't they just murder or brainwash Robert Holmes? Were they bored?

There are so many things wrong with this documentary in style and in coherence. It might not even be worth reviewing or complaining about. It is what it is I suppose, but still something I want to share regardless. I can only summarize all the flaws; there were just too many.  Below are my favorite screen shots from The James Holmes Conspiracy, to make my point.

Random visual within the first five minutes, great.

This part of the film was hilarious! Bill Clinton standing still for makeup. Spooky.

I hate to burst your bubble, but Illusions of time are not actually time travel. Note the use of the word "illusions."

Lead, Saturn, Time? This Google search is presented to the viewer in order to explain something, but it definitely fails at that. Except we do learn that Holmes trained at Lead Valley Range which of course means... wait, what were we talking about?

Meant to show that Holmes began to pay less attention to his studies. Doesn't give a S#%T!

Segments of The Manchurian Candidate were rampant in this documentary. I almost forgot that was a fictional movie for a second, and then I realized this entire documentary is fictional anyway, so just throw in whatever movie clips will make your point.

Was Holmes a lone wolf or was there an accomplice? Did he play Majic The Gathering? These are questions that need to be answered.

Basically played five straight minutes of the Vice documentary about the mind control drug Scopolamine, where the only visuals Vice had were wide shots of Bogota.

Let's talk about Fast and Furious for 10 whole minutes!

Howitt remarks how the Holmes story is "strangely similar to The Dark Knight Rises. " You are then forced to watch the entire preview without any further analysis. 

The James Holmes Conspiracy (2012 Full Documentary) from Multiscan on Vimeo.

Despite all this, I do recommend this documentary if only for a laugh, and the few bits of info that are actually thought-provoking. For instance, the extra gas mask found lying in the parking lot of the movie theater: who did it belong to and why was it there? Why did the chief of police skirt questions about the video survalence footage? Those were the only two things I cannot explain. Everything else about this case seems to be the result of a guy that just went off the deep end and used his college grant money to buy a bunch of weapons. I'm sure if you have a clean record and good credit history it's pretty easy to plan a mass murder. That last statement was not sarcastic.

Morbid Curiosity Double Feature: Cropsey and H.H. Holmes America's First Serial Killer

Horror movies are good fun entertainment, but what to say of films about real life horror? I find documentaries about murderers to be more intellectually gripping and less anxiety provoking - at least until the magnitude of it sinks in. There are two sides to the coin. The horror flick might suck you into the story, but in the end you can feel good knowing it's just a movie. The documentary about serial killers allows you to watch with objectivity but leaves you questioning humanity.
If you are in the mood to question humanity, please enjoy these two documentaries Cropsey and H.H. Holmes America's First Serial Killer.

Click to watch

Cropsey, a 2009 documentary by Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman, follows the story of Staten Island's underbelly of misplaced patients from the closed Willowbrook State School for the mentally ill and handicapped. Officially closed in 1987, the area surrounding the institution was a breeding ground for urban legend. The word "Cropsey" was coined by youths of Staten Island Boy Scout camps, defined as an insane man who lives in the woods near the asylum and murders children. For decades the stories were pass down, but it became very real in 1987 when a 12 year old girl with Downs Syndrome, Jennifer Schweiger, was abducted and murdered, her body found near Willowbrook. Chilling footage from Geraldo Revera's expose on Willowbrook, and aching testimonials of a community torn by disillusionment and terror make for a gripping film.
 

Click to watch

 H.H. Holmes America's First Serial Killer is... well it pretty much explains it in the title. Superb conman, H.H. Holmes with his "murder castle" in Chicago, managed to make countless people disappear for roughly 20 years before he was caught in 1894. It's the stuff every horror movie is made of, from Secret of the Blue Room to Hostel. John Borowski made a documentary about Holmes in 2004. The idea of him being the "first" serial killer is intriguing. It's like saying Holmes invented mass murder, along with the inception of the steam engine. But along with the steam engine also came slightly improved police investigations. Holmes was one of the first serial killers who was actually found out, and studied, defining the concept of a serial killer. Watch this documentary for the bizarre story. It is positively edifying [straightens monocle].
If you want to watch in chronological order (by topic and movie release date) watch H.H. Holmes first. If you want to get the bad news first and then the good news, watch Cropsey first. Even though Holmes seemingly set the standard for serial murder, H.H. Holmes will be refreshing in it's lack of grisly news footage. Enjoy!