Night Stalker: Sarjamurhaajan jäljillä

Many of my friends and acquaintances don't understand how I can like horror movies. Why I voluntarily expose myself to something that is, in their opinion, negative and makes me anxious and scared. I try in vain to explain to them that horror movies are not negative for me, that they don’t make me feel anxious and that, at most, they put me a little “on edge”, which is even more true of the high-quality dramas that they watch. I try to explain to them that horror is genre entertainment, built on the director’s skill in playing with viewers and their emotions and, at the same time, with a filmmaking form that requires far greater innovation than the highest-quality relationship dramas. I can watch five horror movies in a day and thirty over the course of a film festival. That makes me enjoy them all the more and gives me an even bigger appetite for them. Because I want to dwell in their creators’ fantastical world of limitless imagination that only the sci-fi genre can match in terms of variety. ____ But what is horror to me, in the same sense of the word as it is perceived by those uncomprehending critics of the horror genre, are things like this miniseries. Built not on the imagination of creative and enthusiastic filmmakers, but on the real foundation of documentary filmmaking that uncovers an incomprehensible anomaly, a harmful element of our world personifying the ultimate disgust and evil. It’s enough for me to see things like this series once a year. Before this, it was the Hungarian film Son of Saul, which also reflects that reality, paradoxically without the “horror” label appearing among its official genres. (22.01.2021)

A crime documentary from Netflix about the hunt for a notorious serial killer who terrorized Los Angeles in 1985, killing in the name of Satan. Three hours of suffocating and unpleasant material about Richard Ramirez, who oozes evil miles away. It is interesting that this guy killed without any pattern. He raped old, young, women, men, and even children, and only a few people were only attacked. It is not pleasant to watch, the crime scene photos are very brutal, the dialogues are impressive, and the collection of evidence is incredibly demanding. It watched in one breath. It is really very good and definitely a must for fans of serial killers and gritty crime. 8/10. (07.02.2021)

It reminded me a little of Fincher’s Zodiac, and I’m not speaking so much about the formal aspect, but about the feeling that watching both films evokes: the repeated frustration in the face of an inhuman enemy who doesn’t follow any rational pattern and leaves almost no clues that would allow to put a stop to their almost mystically terrifying actions. But whereas Zodiac casts doubts and deconstructs the procedural investigation, in this case, the killer was caught and the process results in oppressive satisfaction. The creators manage to tell a fairly intimate story about two police officers who almost never closed their eyes during the investigation and feared for the lives of their families, and, through the often brutal nature of the crimes and the amount of period material, the viewer is unknowingly forced to relive that atmosphere (on which Zodiac greatly relied) inside their own head. They also tell the events chronologically and we look at the murders according to when they were motivationally connected to key suspects, which works well to keep the curiosity about which of the trails will eventually lead the detectives to the tireless maniac. The range of motivations around the entire case is extremely complex and they not always manage to bring them to life – some of the testimonies are not very constructive, while others are hurt by tedious re-enactments (this format should provide a continuous flow of information connecting the hypotheses of the time with a retrospective reflection in various thematic circles), but the documentary is still very well structured and holds your attention from the first to the last minutes (which is also aided by the smart dosing of key twists and the questions at the end of each episode, in the style of a serial narrative). I didn’t even mind the high degree of subjective opinions or the occasional glorification of law enforcement officers that pushes aside the deeper emotions – but it’s not about psychology, it’s a description of exhausting procedures, and I quite liked it. 85% (16.01.2021)