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DVD Review
The Serial Killers
By Marcus Pan
Three DVDs, six and a half hours, of death
and perversion is enough for just about anybody methinks. On Dark Sky
Films 2005 release of The Serial Killers, we have thirteen
episodes of biographies, discussion and interviews with men and women that have
struck fear into the hearts of millions during their heyday. Going as far back
as The Lipstick Killer (William Heirens), one of the USAs first, and
occasionally looking at items such as the true story of The Amityville Horror
(Ronald DeFeo Jr.), The Serial Killers 3 disc box set will satisfy your
murderous cravings.
Well made and produced and some of the best documentaries of
any genre, the discs cover many aspects of all of the serial and mass
murderers rampages. As good as law enforcement could piece together from
confessions and evidence, the makers didnt concentrate on any one point
of view. Local law enforcement officers, prosecutors, victims and their
families are given equal screen time. The killers themselves are usually
interviewed directly for heady insight into the minds of the deranged.
This isnt your Silence of the Lambs standard
fare stuff. The crimes discussed and shown are real. Its enough for
anybody, really, who has even a cursory interest into psychology, law
enforcement, forensics and criminal behavior. The Lethal Lovers duo (Catherine
May Wood & Gwendolyn Graham), The Hillside Strangler (Kenneth Bianchi) and
the notorious Lady Killer (Theodore Robert Bundy) are here. We stay in the
recent few decades of the past in order to show us a full storyline instead of
delving too far into the current where stories are still being developed and
change as each yelp of the fucked up minds of todays killers run awry.
And many of the murderers here I have only known about cursorily. This will
give you an in-depth look at some of the more obscure serial killers of our
country.
The soundtrack of the series is an eerie combination of jazz
fusion and spookiness, giving the production as a whole a slick sound and feel.
Videography is top notch and direction is superb. The killers themselves are
near remorseless, and just seeing them on screen knowing what they have done as
it is explained to you step by step, in gory brutal detail, is haunting.
Equally scary is the statistics stated at the beginning of each episode
that there are as many as two hundred serial killers still plying their trade
in the world at large. I find it interesting that just about all of the
convicted murderers never accept what theyve done they always
refer to their victims in the third person. Yes, she was killed.
Not, Yes, I killed her/him.
The success of such films as Silence of the Lambs and
its prequel/sequels, Seven and television shows like The X-Files,
CSI, and 24 is a country-wide (and worldwide) fascination with the
macabre. Wanting to see either things that you dont have the balls to do
or just cant accept having being done. Its this that makes
DVDs like The Serial Killers fascinating. What if you were raised by a
whore mother like Henry Lee Lucas? What if your young life was as unfulfilling
and rife with money problems as Lipstick Killer William Heirens? Would you snap
just as boldly and all-encompassingly as these men? Could you be a part of a
Lethal Lover duo if your life was just as fucked up?
Motivations of these men and women range from the
grotesquely insane to the perversely sexual and everything in
between
vengeance, hatred, fear. All of what made Silence of the
Lambs and Hannibal dark, twisted and evil makes The Serial Killers
tenfold as dark because, here, its real. Its not Hollywood made up
story time actual crimes, actual victims, actual derangement. If you
thought a Hollywood thriller was frightening, give this a shot and know
it can happen to you.
Contact Information: Dark Sky Films
Post: MPI Media Group, 16101 S 108th Ave., Orland Park, IL, 60467,
USA
Click to Buy!

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