David Fincher's serial killer chat 'em up MINDHUNTER

jesus god every time I think I'm at critical mass of shows to watch, Netflix just heaps another stack on top

new fincher show means they're finally starting phase 2 of netflix shows

lol "already been renewed for season 2" is possibly the biggest pile of marketing bullshit ever

finally, a look at the psychology of a serial killer

This is apparently based on or heavily influenced by the Ressler and Douglas books, right?

yeah it's an official adaptation

but the characters are fictionalised I assume

It's like MANHUNTER but in the MIND

I mean yeah the MIND OF A SERIAL KILLER stuff is sorta played out in the culture, but this isn't really that, or it is in a different kind of way. The beginning of real understanding of the pathologies that drove these guys, and the idea to interview the few in custody at the time, was extremely revolutionary in its day. I assume -- having read several books by both authors -- that that's what the series will concentrate on: the career risks and mental toll taken by these investigators by starting these projects.

I am a fan of Douglas (and of Douglas' mentor Robert Ressler who wrote Whoever Fights Monsters)

I actually met Douglas a few years back & got his autograph. He was pretty cool.

Looking forward to seeing this!!

Jonathan Groff is gr8 too

Wait this isn't parody?

nope

lol that's a bold choice of title if this isn't a zany spoof of Thomas Harris

It is based on the book Mind Hunter: Inside FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit written by Mark Olshaker and John E. Douglas

That clarification... does not affect the lol

it is still called MINDHUNTER

I'm guessing this (not very good) British comedy is on nobody's radar

http://empireonline.media/jpg/70/0/0/640/480/aspectfit/0/0/0/0/0/0/c/articles/58c908747c5c5bdd3ca6791b/Mindhorn%20poster.jpeg

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Harris never wrote anything called "Manhunter" anyway, Michael Mann did.

Harris's Jack Crawford character was partially based on Douglas, which is presumably why he semi-borrowed the title back off Mann for his book. It's a rich tapestry

Available on Netflix from today, really looking forward to this.

I'll reserve judgment until I finish the season but halfway in I will say Holt McCallany as Fred Ward is A+

pvmic i just finshed binging the whole thing

omg so good

I HAVE THOUGHTS

- I was skeptical that having Groff as Douglas’s substitute would mean Douglas would aggrandize himself & his achievements bc that’s the way he is, but he does not come off well by the end & i really like that, that really put it over the top for me

- the slow burn of neuroses between the three of them is fantastic, because a job like that cant not eat away at the very fabric of yr “self”

- casting of all the criminal subjects was incredible, and the actors were a+. from kemper to speck, not a bum note in any of them

- groff’s transition from ep 1 to ep 10, physically, emotionally, is SO good. anna torv is magical and i love her forever

love it

kinda want to watch it again? #saddo

oh and holt mccallany was grizzled tv cop PERFECT

3 eps to go here...

Veg said everything I was gonna say. Really enjoyed the hell out of this. The lead actors and the guys playing all the killers are all excellent.

I’m not hugely fascinated by serial killers themselves but I love the detecting and psychology angle so this was squarely in my wheelhouse. It felt like Zodiac: the Series in a lot of ways.

Ha I obviously didn’t see the post st the top of the thread

oh and holt mccallany was grizzled tv cop PERFECT

I'm only 2 eps in but man is it nice to see McCallany again. Lights Out was a fine little series.

don't think i've seen Groff play hetero before

that was a little weird at first, not gonna lie

I've really hardened my heart against this because I'm not much of a fan of Fincher, serial killer fic and stuff where the FBI are the good guys. But I suspect from what I'm reading it will probably win me over and become a mucho guilty pleasure watch.

how bloody/disturbing is this show

How violent/gory is this? The premise seems pretty bloodless, but are there reenactments or flashbacks or even just autopsies/ lots of photos?

ha xp

ha weird

basically I want to watch this (loved Zodiac) but my partner is an automatic no on serial killer shit, and I'm squeamish enough myself these days to not necessarily want to spend 10 hours marinating in murder naturalism.

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'm sure they could hand it over to Carl Franklin right, but I think reassembling the cast post-COVID was another problem.

"right now"

We already knew this, but I guess it's officially official now:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/02/david-fincher-mindhunter-is-over

"...gave me the means to do Mank the way I wanted to do it"--somehow, that's just not mitigating my disappointment.

noooo

i knew it but

;_;
;_;

;_;
;_;

;_;
;_;

THIS SUCKS AND I AM SAD

i liked Mank but i’d have taken Mindhunter if i knew there was a choice between the two

Yeah fuckin loved this show

I've tried to get so many people to watch this, but recommending TV shows now is almost embarrassing. "I know everyone says this, but you won't believe how good this is"--you've lost them about halfway through that sentence. (Not that I don't react the same way.)

So many Netflix shows I’ve liked have just been cut off at the knees. Well ok two shows, at least can watch Mindhunter and convince themselves its complete. GLOW on the other hand…

Meanwhile there were what 7 seasons of that godforsaken sons of anarchy

I know, not Netflix. I’m just annoyed.

If it weren't for that great BKT series of prologues, I'd agree that Mindhunter would have felt complete. That's the thing that nags at me. (Especially that final image--if I'm remembering it right--of the BKT killer setting something ablaze.)

ahem BTK

sorry

actually fuck him
call him whatever you like

I guess the T after the K makes no sense, but with these guys, you never know.

lol

If it weren't for that great BKT series of prologues, I'd agree that Mindhunter would have felt complete. That's the thing that nags at me. (Especially that final image--if I'm remembering it right--of the BKT killer setting something ablaze.)

Yes totally. This sucks!

I've tried to get so many people to watch this, but recommending TV shows now is almost embarrassing. "I know everyone says this, but you won't believe how good this is"--you've lost them about halfway through that sentence. (Not that I don't react the same way.)

Yes, I basically ignore almost all streaming recommendations now aside from occasional oddness like The Rehearsal or Paul T. Goldman. Mindhunter brought it though.

if i recall correctly the final thing we see in Mindhunter isn't BTK burning sketches but rather him uh "tying one on" as it were.

the standout scene for me from S2 btw does involve BTK; where Bill is questioning that young man in the car in the parking garage, and the kid's residual fear from his experience w/surviving BTK is just palpable.

I meant the final BTK image; most of that stuff (except for the survivor you mention above) was partitioned off in the prologues. When they interviewed that survivor, I assumed that was going to be the beginning of a series of BTK episodes. But they veered off (or maybe it had already started, don't remember) into the Atlanta child murders, and that took over. Which was great--but there's still that frustration of leaving the other hanging.

That article points out it was too expensive a show for Netflix. For Netflix, the bottomless bucket of churn em outs.

What on earth about the show made it expensive!? It was standard shots, in standard locations, no cgi, no massive-name actors, no exotic locales?

Am I forgetting something razzy about the show, I havent seen it since it aired.

it had a bunch of cgi to make modern locations look old, much like Fincher did on Zodiac, right?

not across the board and we definitely noticed inconsistencies, BUT!

Oh good point yeah

the zodiac behind the scenes killed me, people think cgi means one thing but it really means “hey we don’t have soundstages and btw half of the background is *waves hands* and also we made the coke can he’s drinking from period accurate”

Yeah, that Zodiac behind the scenes was similarly eye opening as far as invisible CG. Though I’m sure Fincher probably pushes that thing harder than most, I have no doubt that show was expensive.

Bummer though, was some good TV.

Besides the invisible CGI, Fincher does tons of takes, which resulted in almost a year of filming for one season. Almost everything is shot on location and he himself commands a pretty high fee, so there's a lot of things that add up

It wasn’t cancelled for budget reasons, though, was it? Didn’t he just get bored and want to do other things, so eventually the actor contracts lapsed and it got canned?

Not sure whether the reason was his wanting a break or too high a budget back in 2020 but he just said in that interview that Netflix doesn't want to fund another season

I'm with James--the budget excuse just strikes me as a deflection from cast issues, and most of all Fincher turning his attention elsewhere.

(On the other hand, they'd reached a point where I can't see that they needed Fincher; Carl Franklin did a great job on the Atlanta murders and could easily have taken over if available.)

I’m assuming netflix just wouldn’t fund crap and he has a long schedule. What other commitments do the core cast have that? I love this show but….

I skipped a couple words but you get it

Started another re-watch for a future Zoom. Debbie, first episode: "Didn't I see you on Soul Train?"

I'm always kind of astonished at how much gets accomplished narratively in that first episode. It's a really deep and masterfully constructed hour.

Including how they get Tench in there sideways, standing in the wings listening to that one guy lecture.

The BTK story didn't seem so unresolved to me this time. I think somewhere on this thread I misremembered how it finished: BTK burning stuff ended S1, not S2. It's still odd how S2 starts like they're going full tilt on BTK and then (with a couple of quick, high-profile detours) switch over to Atlanta midway. I've never read an account of what exactly happened, but it does feel like Fincher got pulled away by Mank or whatever and handed everything over to Carl Franklin. He does an excellent job on Atlanta (returning the show to some striking musical cues, too), so they caught a break there. Anyway, this time it felt more like bringing BTK to a close would have been too pat; it ends like it probably should, with the unsettling reality that these people will always be out there, somewhere.

The one thing I think they inarguably let slip away is Carr.

My friend and I are down to nine more of these: a Zoomcast on the music in Mindhunter (mostly) and My Friend Dahmer (a little bit).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9H-lQe-8sk

Damn, this is great.

Watching S1E2, and, above all else, I’m just so happy that Holt McCallany got to play a role like this.

Sorry, I meant S1E5

I had no idea he'd been around for so long till I looked at his IMDB page. He's in one of my favourite movies, Casualties of War; must be a small part, not listed on the main cast page.

i got a little bit of my Mindhunter jones from the Apple series Black Bird, which is another true crime serial killer profiling-type story. Similarly not exploitative, the only violence onscreen is during a prison riot when it's visited upon some prisoners and a couple of vv unlucky guards. It's a bit more pulpy but I thought it was very good. It features one of Ray Liotta's final performances and he's tough to watch, knowing what happens IRL soon and how his character's body is also failing him. Taron Egerton is pretty exceptional in the lead role, Paul Walter Hauser even better as real-life killer Larry Hall.

yeah Black Bird was a+
Hauser was so good! i only knew him from comedy roles before that

Greg Kinnear, also good! His early scenes, interrogating Hall and faced with the inept local cops, were vv Mindhuntery.

yeah definitely!