i feel like i missed out (uh, not really) on the serial killer scares of the 80s (and i guess early 90s?). i can vaguely remember the Dahmer trial, but has there been any that the media have latched onto since then?
The BTK killer (bind, torture, kill) was caught in 2005 (thanks to a floppy disk, iirc!), although the murders were many years earlier. This got a lot of play in the media.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader
― nickn, Friday, 7 June 2013 23:58 (eleven years ago) link
iirc the Green River killer case went cold for a long time until police finally arrested and charged Gary Ridgway in 2001.
I remember being stationed overseas when Berkowitz was at large, although I wasn't quite 8 years old. That was my dad's home turf so he kept up on the news from home about it all the time.
― hashtag sizzler (Phil D.), Saturday, 8 June 2013 01:53 (eleven years ago) link
Snowtown murders in Australia. Craaaazy shit.
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 8 June 2013 01:56 (eleven years ago) link
Forgot the Pig Farmer Killer earlier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pickton
Also in Canada, the Highway Of Tears murders are still unsolved (quite possible there's more than one killer though)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Tears_murders
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 8 June 2013 02:38 (eleven years ago) link
Also unsolved: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Killing_Fields_(location)
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 8 June 2013 02:39 (eleven years ago) link
Pickton case is crazypants
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 8 June 2013 03:41 (eleven years ago) link
Texas Killing Fields is a particularly grim one for me.
― ryan, Saturday, 8 June 2013 03:46 (eleven years ago) link
fuck, the Vice Issei Sagawa documentary is just...
― emilys., Saturday, 8 June 2013 07:55 (eleven years ago) link
Dude's comic is pretty cool, I hate to say
― emilys., Saturday, 8 June 2013 07:59 (eleven years ago) link
But yeah, fascinating and weirdly likeable as he is...it's pretty annoying that this guy is able to live in relative peace & that Vice just played into it like he's some sympathetic character, meanwhile giving zero recognition to the person he killed. It's fucked up to say, but I'm kind of proud to live in 'murica, where a dude like this would not survive for very long as a free man.
Also what the fucking fuck at whoever orchestrated that porno. I kind of hate them more than I hate Sagawa.
― emilys., Saturday, 8 June 2013 08:06 (eleven years ago) link
This guy was a big deal 'round here in the mid '90s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81ngel_Maturino_Res%C3%A9ndiz
― Mr. Mojo Readin' (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 8 June 2013 08:40 (eleven years ago) link
does the beltway sniper count
― cozen, Saturday, 8 June 2013 10:07 (eleven years ago) link
xp yeah, in general i like lenient/rehabilitative prison systems -- and don't think murderers should always serve life in prison, necessarily -- but it pisses me off that issei sagawa is free, and that vice treated him as just like this eccentric. also he doesn't seem extremely repentant so i'm not sure if japan is very safe with him at large...
― Treeship, Saturday, 8 June 2013 15:15 (eleven years ago) link
There was one arrested in Alaska a few months ago. Maybe they just aren't as big a news draw.
― хуто-хуторянка (ShariVari), Friday, June 7, 2013 5:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
This is exactly it, the media just doesn't care any more. There's a serial killer active in long island and it's just a local story.
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 8 June 2013 20:42 (eleven years ago) link
I'm still amazed that Luka Magnotta wasn't a bigger deal.
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 8 June 2013 20:43 (eleven years ago) link
Was Dahmer the last one to achieve real celebrity status? Gary Ridgway doesn't seem like the type I could assume most people would know right way.
― ryan, Saturday, 8 June 2013 21:03 (eleven years ago) link
I just looked up Luka Magnotta. Jesus christ on a cracker that is horrifying.
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 8 June 2013 21:09 (eleven years ago) link
Looked Magnotta up too. Fucking hell, it takes a LOT to squick me out...
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 8 June 2013 23:53 (eleven years ago) link
magnotta's the gay porn star kitten killer one right? i remember all my gay friends going on about that one, apparently it's not hard to find the videos. i'd totally forgotten angel resendiz but yeah that was a big deal briefly. vivid memories of this also - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gainesville_Ripper. can also remember the summer of dahmer. he does seem to be the last one to achieve that icon status of a gacy or bundy. apparently serial killings have gone down and while i'm sure datamining and just better information technology in general has played the largest role apparently media not turning these guys into rock stars has helped also, whether that was any kind of deliberate move on the part of the industry or if they just followed the money to mass shootings and terrorism (where media exposure is also a motivation) i don't know.
― balls, Sunday, 9 June 2013 00:12 (eleven years ago) link
yeah I think the "Hunting Humans" boom is (unintentionally) as much about the sociology of the cult of personally that sprung up around serial killers up until Dahmer.
Have the slightly creepy intuition that no real fame has accrued to any since then because none of them have been *artistic* enough. No originality.
― ryan, Sunday, 9 June 2013 00:57 (eleven years ago) link
boom = book of course
I'm not a student of this or anything, but I notice that Dahmer was arrested the same year as Silence of the Lambs. If he was the last one to gain widespread notoriety, would the movie have anything to do with that? Maybe it was an apotheosis of sorts, eclipsing all subsequent real-life versions.
― clemenza, Sunday, 9 June 2013 01:35 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i could see these grand guignol tabelaux serial killers (which probably reaches its apotheosis w/ se7en) presented in media would set a standard that actual dull drifters and nerds serial killers could never live up to. the rest of the nineties 'serial killers are a kind of performance artist' cliche is just exhausting that interest and then columbine preceded by the smaller school shootings (and maybe in a weird way andrew cunanan) provide a more easy to work w/ for tv and definitely more legitimate alternative. it's odd cuz serial killers are sort of built for the internet (fincher's zodiac is almost a movie about the internet, or at least burying yrself in data and the difference between data and information) but maybe the timing element plays against it, something where there can be months or even years between incidents is handicapped in an age where a story that goes two or three days w/ no developments is dead in the water.
― balls, Sunday, 9 June 2013 01:57 (eleven years ago) link
I think that issue of sustaining a media narrative is pretty insightful.
serial killer mythos also perhaps tied to old boogie man myths (as in "go to bed or Jeffrey Dahmer will get you") which while certainly timeless in certain respects almost seem of another era--one with more loneliness, darkness, and weird sounds in the night than we tend to experience any more.
― ryan, Sunday, 9 June 2013 02:02 (eleven years ago) link
Most serial killers have no interest in being artistic. They are gratifying other urges. The majority try to keep their activities as low-profile as they can, so they can operate as freely as possible. Movies and tv require stories filled with terror and heroics. Serial killers are usually just sordid and disgusting.
― Aimless, Sunday, 9 June 2013 02:11 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah it's important to draw a distinction between the culture around these guys and their pathetic realities. nevertheless there is often a certain consciousness in how they present themselves to the police and media. zodiac certainly good example of that.
nowadays I'm much more frightened that some random guy will open fire on me at the mall or something. but then again thinking of someone crawling through your window on a warm summer night has a special horror of its own.
― ryan, Sunday, 9 June 2013 02:13 (eleven years ago) link
something where there can be months or even years between incidents is handicapped in an age where a story that goes two or three days w/ no developments is dead in the water
That seems exactly right. The Columbines and Auroras and Boston Marathons, awful one-time events that unfold minute-by-minute, are much more in sync with the internet age.
― clemenza, Sunday, 9 June 2013 02:18 (eleven years ago) link
the boy in the homemade balloon who wasn't in the balloon, although the balloon spent a couple hours live on CNN == perfect internet age story
no serial killers involved :-(
― Aimless, Sunday, 9 June 2013 02:24 (eleven years ago) link
maybe the distinction between local and national news matters too. there was a murder in Austin on New Year's Eve a year ago and i won't bore with all the details but it definitely had all the hallmark elements. Huge story for a few weeks, parts of the community around UT especially were very on edge. We found out later he had killed himself a few days after the murder, possibly after seeing police sketches of himself plastered all over town. It was an eerie time.
― ryan, Sunday, 9 June 2013 02:25 (eleven years ago) link
I'm watching The Snowtown Murders right now and wondering if this is such a good idea...
― carl agatha, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:13 (ten years ago) link
creepy + v disturbing
i liked it but it's hard to watch
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:14 (ten years ago) link
serial murder is a p bad idea
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:14 (ten years ago) link
yea i know there was a praise-heavy thread on it but i had to turn it off
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:15 (ten years ago) link
I'm working while watching it so I have a little bit of a buffer, but the bit with the wallaby heads was the first indication of what I was in for.
― carl agatha, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:17 (ten years ago) link
It is staggeringly good but it really fucked me up.
― Thelema & Louise (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:18 (ten years ago) link
It's not helping that I think Daniel Henshall is handsome.
― carl agatha, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:19 (ten years ago) link
Oh no not the dog.
I'm going to try not to liveblog my viewing of this movie, but I may have to pop in for support now and then.
― carl agatha, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:24 (ten years ago) link
Is he the protagonist or the charismatic? You're in for some whiplash either way...
― Thelema & Louise (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:26 (ten years ago) link
Btw my mustache needs cutting so badly ATM that I kind of resemble the drugged out sunken cheeked accomplice :(
― Thelema & Louise (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:27 (ten years ago) link
Ugh the dog scene.
The movie actually gets more disturbing btw so strap in!
― This amigurumi Jamaican octopus is ready to chill with you (Phil D.), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:28 (ten years ago) link
Daniel Henshall plays John, who is the charismatic, I believe. The guy who gets the kid to go along with his killing spree. This fella:
http://www.boudist.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Daniel-Henshall-Snowtown-209-590x885.jpg
― carl agatha, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:31 (ten years ago) link
Yep he is a magnetic motherfucker.
― Thelema & Louise (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:45 (ten years ago) link
We'll talk later abt the particular scene where his performance will haunt me to the end of my days
― Thelema & Louise (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:46 (ten years ago) link
yeah he's really great -- and I get a weird Australian Ricky Gervais vibe from him
apparently a good portion of the supporting cast and extras are all locals
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:54 (ten years ago) link
oh wow all of them except the 2 main stars were locals!
Apart from Daniel Henshall and Richard Greene, the actors were locals with no acting experience that Kurzel had found in the area where the murders occurred, with most from Davoren Park. Kurzel himself grew up in the area and felt that using locals would move the film from being a one dimensional horror show to a tragic human story showing what happens when people are disadvantaged. Davoren Park is considered one of the most violent and dysfunctional suburbs in Australia and a place where emergency vehicles fear to go without a police escort. According to Kurzel, far from the "wow, I'm going to be a movie star" attitude that he had expected, he had some difficulty convincing them to take part.[8][9]
that last line is kinda... dude, I could have told him that
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:55 (ten years ago) link
is this on tv right now y/n
― tight in the runs (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:55 (ten years ago) link
It's on Netflix streaming
― Thelema & Louise (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:56 (ten years ago) link
Yes. That's where I'm watching it.
― carl agatha, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 19:58 (ten years ago) link
That's amazing about the actors. The kid who plays Jamie is fantastic.
― carl agatha, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 20:00 (ten years ago) link
The mom, too.
― carl agatha, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 20:01 (ten years ago) link