In the interest of getting “hard” copies of my work under one roof, I plan to spend the next few weeks posting the entire archive of my film journalism here on ScullyVision. With due respect to the many publications I’ve written for, the internet remains quite temporary, and I’d hate to see any of my work disappear for digital reasons. As such, this gargantuan project must begin! I don’t want to do it. I hate doing it. But it needs to be done. Please note that my opinions, like everyone’s, have changed a LOT since I started, so many of these reviews will only represent a snapshot in time. Objectivity has absolutely no place in film criticism, at least not how I do it.
Originally posted on Cinema76.
Monster Week continues with this look at true crime and horror! See the rest of the week’s coverage here.
“Based on true events.” Those four words are used very often within the horror genre, and they are always employed to suggest that the terrible things the audience is about to see could just as easily happen to them. They say the truth is stranger than fiction, and more often than not this is indeed the case. So when a film claims to be based on real life occurrences, any number of unbelievable things can happen within the narrative, and audiences are primed not to question any of it and, more importantly, to fear all of it. It is based on true events after all.
Yet “based on true events” is a rather dubious phrase when we take it at face value. It is not saying “what you are about to see did happen” or “this is the biopic of a person who was killed by ghosts.” No, the phrase “based on true events” means exactly what it says and not an iota more. And what is it saying? Well, it sounds dumb, but what it is saying is that the film you are about to watch is simply “based” on something that happened. For example, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre claims to be inspired by a true story. This is a factually true statement, but one would be remiss to believe that Leatherface is real and that he and his family spent a hot summer day torturing and killing Sally Hardesty and friends. The truth of the matter is that Tobe Hooper was inspired by the graphic coverage of violence on the news. He wanted to comment on how exploitative the local news could be, while also reconciling the lies that the government put forth about Vietnam, Watergate, and the oil crisis. Furthermore, the idea of Leatherface wearing the skin of his victims came from the life of Ed Gein, the murderer who was also cited as an inspiration for Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs. So yes, true events did inspire the film, but the events of the film are entirely fictional.
Another example is The Strangers. This film claims to be based on a true story, which, once again, is technically true. But did a masked trio of murderers, somehow supernaturally aware of the director’s camera torture and kill a handsome couple over the course of a single harrowing night? Not even close. Writer/director Bryan Bertino was inspired by something that occurred when he was a child. One night, he and his sister were home alone and a knock came at the door. Upon answering, they were met by a group of strangers who were asking for someone specific. Bertino and his sister had never heard of this person, so the strangers moved on. Later, Bertino found out that a group of people was knocking on doors and robbing the houses that were empty. He also claims that he was loosely inspired by the Tate-LaBianca murders committed by the Manson Family. Once again, while true events fed the brainchild of the creator, the events of the film are completely made up.
This is all well and good, and I will never shame any sort of huckster for using the “true events” tag to help bring the fear home. Horror is indeed about the willful suspension of disbelief, in which a viewer is convinced, however subconsciously, that having opened their door to scary entertainment, they have also somehow summoned the darkness into their own lives. It’s why horror is so much fun for fans. I like being scared, and even though I don’t believe in demons, the right confluence of cinematic elements can get me spooked about them nonetheless, and even now that I’ve grown somewhat cynical of the “based on true events” tag, invocation of this claim will always send me down a wikihole to find some actual true story that, while movieless, keeps me up at night. Horror hounds like myself will chase this dragon ceaselessly, with each subsequent guttural scare raising the bar for future frights.
With this never ending mission in mind, it’s no surprise that many genre fans have moved from “based on a true story” to the harrowing world of true crime. Look at any list of popular podcasts and you’ll find more than a few that are expressly about murder. Log onto Netflix and you’ll see no shortage of documentary shows, feature length crime exposés, and fact-based recreations of real world events (Netflix, for a few months last year, could’ve been accurately called “The Bundy Channel” and not because of Married With Children). And if you’re a reader like me, the bookstore, the Nook store, and audible are all drowning in true crime material, both old and new. In fact, earlier this year I read In Cold Blood for the first time, and the copy I bought was from a 2019 printing. Crime, like Hansel, is so hot right now.
This trend is sort of cyclical, at least for some of us. I can confidently say that Unsolved Mysteries, a show that featured a ton of true crime during my adolescent years, is partially responsible for my subsequent horror fandom. I can also say that my love of horror, as previously mentioned, is very responsible for my current obsession with true crime.
There’s an ethical dilemma here. Namely that in order for true crime entertainment to exist, people have to suffer, go missing, die, or any combination of the three. Can’t get a hot dog out of the machine without putting a life into it…but goddamnit I want my hot dogs. Reckoning with this dilemma, I find that I have no good answers. Certainly, some flavors of true crime feel exploitative or tasteless to me, and I tend to avoid such material, but if tasked, I couldn’t possibly explain to you what the limits of my taste are. “I’ll know it when I see it” is the shittiest copout imaginable in a world obsessed with policing the entertainment of others, but it’s all I’ve got. That said, if you can enjoy something a little more extreme than I, who am I to stop you, so long as you’re not watching literal snuff?
Interesting that both fictional horror and true crime often evoke the same ethical question from critics of the genres: Why is it that you find such terrible things to be entertaining?
It’s a question worth asking, and I can assure the critics that it’s a question horror fans and true crime fans ask themselves much more than you ever could. I’ll reiterate the answer I spent a thousand words already saying. I simply don’t know.
But I am prepared to make a guess.
I’ve already stated that a lot of it has to do with chasing the fun feeling of being safely scared, but I think there might be something deeper going on — something that’s going to scare me to exposit upon. Here goes:
I find it unfathomable to commit a horrendous crime. Yeah, I’ve done plenty of criminal things, mostly in the form of illegal inhalations (which are now legal, bitchesssss), or in petty, adolescent theft. Yeah, I’ve run a red light before, and I’ve certainly driven a little over the speed limit. I stole a TON of music during my teenage years, and used to make a habit of sneaking into the movies. Ya know that “do not remove” tag on a mattress? Fuck that tag. I ripped it off. So yeah, I’ve committed my fair share of crimes. You know what I haven’t done, though? I’ve never picked up a prostitute, brought them back to my house, drilled a hole in their skull and filled it with chemicals to try and create a real life zombie, only to kill said prostitute, then fuck and eat their torso. Never once. In fact, the thought has never even occurred to me. But for Jeffrey Dahmer, this was a regular Thursday. For him, this was normal.
Why do I get up in the morning and think to myself “I’m off to work, and when I get done I’ll probably watch a movie and hang out with my girlfriend” while Richard Chase thinks “I’d better drink some rabbit blood since my own blood is infected, but first let me juice this orange on my head so I can absorb the vitamins I lost while eating my pregnant neighbor last night”?
Why do I enjoy playing video games while Ed Kemper enjoys holding court with corpses he’s made? Why do I like to wear blue jeans while Ed Gein likes to wear people? Why do I collect action figures while Dennis Rader enjoys collecting the underwear of women he’s strangled?
My guess is that these monsters act the way that they do from a mix of faulty wiring and a traumatic youth, as well as a million other factors that I am unqualified to diagnose. Yet at the same time, while I am not interested in performing any of these terrible acts…I am enamored with thinking about them. I enjoy all of the sordid details. I obsess over how scary and painful it must’ve been for the victims. I think about what the victims’ families felt when they learned of how torturous the final moments of their loved ones’ lives were. I think about the investigators and how they had to wait for bodies to pile up in order to make further progress on their cases. And when it’s all done, I sit at home in fear that maybe I already know the person who is going to kill me. I worry that I’ve already completed some innocuous action that has set into motion the events that lead to my horrifying demise. I get scared that someone near me will die and I will be blamed, and detectives will see my true crime obsession in my internet history and I’ll be locked up for life on a baseless assumption. It’s a whole rollercoaster of emotions, but I tell myself that as long as I keep my thoughts victim-forward, refusing to lionize my favorite criminals, I am in the ethical clear.
But the fact of the matter remains that both myself and John Wayne Gacy enjoy the suffering of others, albeit to very different degrees and in very different ways.
Maybe this is really why horror fans have moved toward the world of true crime. Because in this realm we find ourselves closer to real monsters than any horror movie could bring us. We see how the tastes and desires we carry, while wholly innocent, are not far off from those of a true maniac. Then we look around at all the other people in the world and wonder how many absolute monsters we pass by on a day to day basis. How many times were we that close to pure evil? How many times were we just a few minutes short and a few feet to the left of being at the wrong place at the wrong time? Where in our lives could the wrong influence have sent any of us down an irrevocable path of wickedness.
These thoughts are all absolutely terrifying, each in their own way, and every single one of them is based on a true story.
