David Fincher's serial killer chat 'em up MINDHUNTER

99% of “gore” is crime scene photographs. there’s no dramatization of the murders themselves vis flashbacks or anything - the horrors are mostly communicated through conversation

there is one v shocking moment in ep1 that is quite gory but passes by v quickly

It’s not very gory overall. There is a scene in the first episode with some brief gore but it’s not serial killer-related.

Apart from that it’s mostly just crime scene photos and graphic verbal descriptions of crimes.

*LOTS* of ookiness and creepy shit though.

X-post

yeah, and the crime scene photos are not lingered upon & are faintly colored or black & white
often by the time you realize what you are seeing it’s already off camera

def not for the faint hearted but nowhere near the gorefest you might expect

fincher himself has described the show as mainly being about conversations & that def bears out

perfect, thanks!

One of my favorite bits was the looks Anna Torv kept shooting at Groff during their first meeting when he'd interject. Close up as he writes in notebook: "BOOK?"

enjoying this so far but Brandy is otm here

Fincher: this is Debbie, she's a real human woman
Me: lmaoooo oh for sure man

— BranDIE Jensen (@BrandyLJensen) October 15, 2017

on put more simply Debbie is basically the Cool Girl from the Gone Girl rant

Otherwise this has been v enjoyable

*quickly crosses off “looking for my Debbie (watch Mindhunter!!)” from my dating profile*

great we've established that this drama contains fictional characters

idk man some characters resemble types of people you find out there in the world, some are more like narrative devices with legs

Debbie’s introductory scenes are silly maybe but she didn’t strike me as unrealistic past that?

I've been re-watching Fringe so it's mildly amusing to see Anna Torv play a Boston-based FBI consultant. Am glad she's getting regular work again too.

I'm about two-thirds in and this is pretty good! And despite the dour subject matter, it's genuinely funny at points - that one killer who couldn't stop crying, the seat-switching scene in the airplane, Holt McCallany in general.

yeah the quippy dialogue is good and I'm glad that they weren't afraid to allow some humor in -- for a show that's pretty tense it's also got a nice contrasting relaxed vibe about it

oh and the music cues are great. the Exile 'I Wanna Kiss You All Over' cue at the end of the shoe fetish episode was so good

I wanted to single out a really excellent shot, when Monte Rissell is talking about how it all could have been different for him if he'd stayed where he wanted to, and the camera tracks in on the back of his head. The combination of his words and the shot was inexplicably moving.

The episode, I think it’s the sixth or seventh, where it’s about the characters coming to terms with their new roles and we see a glimpse of their lives and the toll this is all taking and the ways they’re dealing with the work, was really well timed

i love how flat & deadeyed & sarcastic Ford is in the final episode, compared to his wide-eyed enthusiam in ep 1

oh and the music cues are great.

Eh I don't know... some of them are little too on-the-nose. "Psycho Killer" and "I Don't Like Mondays" come to mind.

"Psycho Killer" seemed pretty bad tbh

this show still rules

i like on the nose

*makes note on little pad*

POST

is this all fincher or is it one of those 'he sets the parameters in e01' deals where they bring in working tv directors for the remainder to ape his style

he directed 4 of the 10 eps

Asif Kapadia, at least, was an inspired choice.

idk man some characters resemble types of people you find out there in the world, some are more like narrative devices with legs

yeah i get that, i guess i didn't think that character is badly written so much as dormant. i'm only three episodes in and her scenes have been p well done and indicative of character imo but she doesn't do anything and hasn't got much purpose, so far. that feels different from a character who is a cipher or a plot device.

i watched one ep and her role seemed to be mainly to ensure that the show isn't literally all men which is.. laudable i guess as a gesture but hardly enough really

one of the leads is also a woman

she doesn't turn up til later though

fair enough.

this is a photo of fbi agents in 1977. note the shaggy hairstyles, the sideburns, the mustache. NOT NEARLY ENOUGH MUSTACHES IN THIS SHOW

https://mikemcclaughry.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/fbi_agents_raiding_cedars_complex_-_scientology.png

it is p amazing who the alarm systems dude with the moustache was. promises an interesting storyline.

not one with a conclusion anytime soon though...

"I've been re-watching Fringe so it's mildly amusing to see Anna Torv play a Boston-based FBI consultant. Am glad she's getting regular work again too."

I just got to ep 3 and was thinking I haven't seen in her anything since Fringe + she's ace!

period detail is definitely pretty half-hearted

in contrast The Deuce has impeccable period detail, but is unwatchable imo.

not one with a conclusion anytime soon though...

yeah am intrigued to see what they do with it.

i agree btw with people saying the rock hits are a bit on the nose, but i think the original score is great at times. some really interesting electronic type stuff, eg in the opening scene of ep 1.

still not totally sold on The Deuce but at the very least Maggie Gyllenhall is incredible in it

from what I saw in the first ep she is great in it, yeah.

but double fucking James Franco is not something I was looking forward to.

I think the lack of really accurate period details balanced with what seems (to us) to be really obvious musical cues are pretty indicative of where they wanted to spend money and how wide they're trying to cast the net to reel in audiences. Zodiac had the deep moviemaking budget and was strenuously period-appropriate, but it sure didn't pull in the audience.

I am enjoying @MINDHUNTER_ but their costumer should know that any self respecting male federal employee circa 1977 would wear a tie clip.

— Mary (@maryfduffy) October 14, 2017

otm

A lot of Kemper's dialogue is taken straight from this interview (or appears to be, assuming he didn't repeat himself a lot).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFfc151Zkg4

I pay so little attention to serial killer stuff that I was under the misapprehension that Kemper was a fictional killer, based on Ed Gein or a composite of other real killers or something. Holy shit, he was was for real.

Kemper is responsible for this quote (misattributed to Ed Gein in American Psycho)

“What do you think, now, when you see a pretty girl walking down the street? One side of me says, ‘Wow, what an attractive chick. I’d like to talk to her, date her.'The other side of me says, “I wonder how her head would look on a stick?’”

The two male leads (and maybe others) of the series seem to be a fictionalized split of FBI agent John Douglas's professional experience into multiple characters with personal details created to flesh out the cast. The actual interviews and most case details are pretty true to life.

it is p amazing who the alarm systems dude with the moustache was. promises an interesting storyline.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Monday, October 16, 2017 12:58 PM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not one with a conclusion anytime soon though...

― Number None, Monday, October 16, 2017 1:03 PM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the manner in which they deploy this character, using him to open the show, is simple but truly stellar.

this hits the same right notes as Zodiac in that i think the most chilling thing about these types of crimes is the unknown, both in terms of who did and the fact they they're still in the wind and could be anywhere, but even after capture, after the fact, just trying to pin down an explicable reason as to why someone would do such a thing.

enjoying the fact that every time they cut to a Quantico establishing shot of some kind, there's automatic gunfire. foreshadowing the future of violence in america vs what occurs in the '70s and '80s? just a neat device?? idk, i like it.

I used to often work with lots of ADT employees on commercial installations, and still have ADT cups and pens in the house from my old days in the electrical industry. Doing fault-finding on massive alarm systems is enough to drive anyone to murder tbh! I'm only up to ep 3, but the pedantic + slightly off ADT guy cuts a really sinister figure alright.

Yeah Kemper is all too real and there are hours upon hours, possibly days/months of interview audio out there.

Brudos the shoe guy was a piece of work irl - maintained his innocence right to the end, just clogged the system with endless appeals & bullshit & never admitted to a single thing.

Speck was perfectly cast - from everything i’ve read, in person he was like a walking middle finger

man I can’t get into this beyond the blurry shape of details a tv show suggests because I’m going to start admiring the shape of coworkers’ skulls during meetings or something

you guys are going to make me watch this again

That's another thing they have in common: every time either thread is revived, I feel this compulsion to rewatch!

agree with omar & fgti that I actually preferred the show to zodiac -- it felt like he improved on the clarity depicting something that says something about the subject matter

i think the show is similar to Zodiac in the respect it's about the haunting unknowable, like maybe you can close a case but you'll never really "get it".

There's a movie with Rami Malek coming out, The Amateur, that I want to see primarily for Holt McCallany (Tench).

I watched the second Tom Cruise Reacher movie recently and seeing Holt in it made me reminisce about this wonderful show

also very good as Fritz Von Erich in The Iron Claw

i think the show is similar to Zodiac in the respect it's about the haunting unknowable, like maybe you can close a case but you'll never really "get it".

― omar little, Thursday, February 13, 2025 12:56 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

yeah when I say clarity I def dont mean about the cases themselves haha

i think what i appreciate about this show is its def not about the obsession of some dudes with finding a killer, but about this particular sickness permeating the culture, arguably getting into the territory of what's wrong with men, which would be maybe a bit of a tired concept if explicitly stated but it's more subtextual. the more obvious bits i actually do frequently like a lot though, the vv illuminating conversation Holden has in the bar with the visiting expert on this pathology was fascinating precisely because the characters are just talking it out, like they might IRL.

Bought this the other day:

https://i.postimg.cc/dtxmxfxw/shadow.jpg

I don't think it's the basis for Mindhunter--above the title there's a quote from John Douglas, author of Mindhunter--but there must be some connection.

Robert Ressler’s “Whoever Fights Monsters” would be my pick for direct inspiration imo - he was Douglas’s former partner (and v loose inspo for the character of Tench) they conducted the first series of interviews together at the BSU … and he helped create Vi-CAP (the book is more about Ressler than Douglas but thats mostly bc there’s beef between them & major egos lol)

anyway its a good read & highly recommend to anyone who dug the show

Reading John Douglas' book--more out of appreciation (Christmas gift from a friend) than genuine interest; how could it possibly be as good as the show--so I finished yet another rewatch. I've posted so much above, but:

1) was surprised, after checking, that both David Berkowitz and Wayne Williams are still alive (didn't check anybody else);

2) I think this is the Magnificent Ambersons--what could have been--of television. They spend so much time beautifully setting up the BTK story--and continue to, even after they veer off to Atlanta--and that's where they end. (Did they ever get any flak for the ending? Very Silence of the Lambs.) To just leave all that hanging, without a third season, is maddening.

got a little jump scare seeing this guy in an insurance tv ad the other day
https://d3q27bh1u24u2o.cloudfront.net/news/2026-01/2368x2.lt50nk2_.png

https://lbbonline.com/news/Progressive-Passive-Progressive