Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I find it slightly worrying that so many dissensus users are so into serial killers tbh
what are you reading now?
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
"Everyone" is nowadays, the Dahmer series was the biggest thing Netflix has put out all year.
Not to say that it's a healthy thing to be interested in, but clearly a lot of people are, and the majority of them are normies. (Actually, I suspect the majority of true crime fans are women, actually.)
Not to say that it's a healthy thing to be interested in, but clearly a lot of people are, and the majority of them are normies. (Actually, I suspect the majority of true crime fans are women, actually.)
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I liked in cold blood (does that count?) but other than that I've never really felt the need to subject myself to it. Like you say, i don't think it's healthy.
I don't think you can compare this sort of stuff to Shakespeare!
I don't think you can compare this sort of stuff to Shakespeare!
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Orwell wrote a good essay on the history of the English fascination with murder
www.orwellfoundation.com
Decline of the English Murder | The Orwell Foundation
"The murderer should be a little man of the professional class – a dentist or a solicitor, say – living an intensely respectable life somewhere in the suburbs..."
www.orwellfoundation.com
version
Well-known member
I'm not that into them. I just picked up the Kobek book because Cat and Kent pitched it as a sort of overview of weird 60s San Francisco mixed with Zodiac.
'The Monster of Florence' was something I stumbled across through parapolitical stuff in Italy, i.e. Gladio, P2, rather than because I was looking for it. I don't go in for the morbid stuff. There's just some overlap between some of it and the political conspiracy stuff.
The procedural thing, hunting for clues, is what I find interesting when I do come across it. I'm not particularly interested in the lurid details of the actual murders and agree that it's unhealthy when people fixate on them.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
In Cold Blood is fantastic FWIW (but probably somewhat fictionalised)
The only other true crime book I've read that I'd recommend, although it is bloody depressing, is "Killing for Company" by Brian Masters about Dennis Nielsen.
version
Well-known member
Other than this Zodiac thing, I don't think I've ever read one. I've read a few novels on that sort of tip - Ellroy, Sinclair's one on The Ripper - but that's it.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Sorry, it was really a rhetorical question, I didn't expect you to be able to tell me why the police might invent a serial killer. But the question is relevant I think and someone needs to answer if if that theory is to be taken seriously, in The Wire they were trying to raise money for the dept and so they cooked up a much more high profile case to do so - I think it's generally agreed to be the weakest season and it seems a little far-fetched, but at least there is a reason given.
I'm confused by this book though, is it saying that there was no Zodiac killer, or is it saying that there was one and it's the guy you've hidde in the spoiler* bit? I have to say that that latter conclusion seems so ridiculous that it's tempting to dismiss the whole book outright if it does indeed draw that conclusion.
*Although, just so you know, when I quoted your words the hidden bit appeared between two brackets labelled spoiler
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IdleRich
IdleRich
He was the most watchable actor in this film for me for what that's worth. Are the other two films you mention good? Are they true crime ones or not? I wish they'd called them the Rummaging Through Records In Dark Rooms trilogy instead, it sounds better.
version
Well-known member
Yeah, I enjoyed all three. Dark Waters is possibly my favourite. That one's about a corporate lawyer uncovering the Teflon scandal. Spotlight's about a Boston newspaper uncovering abuse in the Catholic church.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I was just thinking that I wished I was sensitive enough to be affected in the same way by that scene, I have to admit I didn't really bat an eyelid. Though actually, now you say it, I do think there is something horrible about surrendering yourself to just being killed - the way that they really just let him tie them up as they figure it's their best chance to survive, and then they are helpless when he stabs them.
I don't think it's that simple though as to say that I am less sensitive, I guess it's just different things for different people. In similar vein - in that they surrender themselves to death - one that I found uncomfortable is that scene near the start of No Country For Old Men when he says "Just stand here please sir" so he can put him down with the bolt gun for killing cattle, or worse still, if you ever saw that tv show called Utopia (the British one with Neil Maskell), there is a scene at the start where he goes into a comic shop and orders people to breathe from a gas canister he's holding and they just die. That got me I have to say, I think it was wondering what I would do in that situation and concluding that, like many I guess, if someone orders you that authoritatively to do something (and I guess he had a gun or something) there is a very good chance I would just do, just die without even putting up a fight.
Oh look, that scene is on youtube
As for the basement scene, the person I watched it was with clearly really scared by it and kept exclaiming "oh no, uh-oh, oh god" type things all the way through.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I was pretty taken aback when I read about someone linking Zodiac and The Monster of Florence.
@Corpsey you should definitely read about The Monster. Wild case.
Italian mass killer 'was servant of Satanic sect'
The blood has long dried and corpses no longer turn up among the cypresses, but Tuscany's horror story has acquired a sensational twist. The Monster of Florence may have been a Satanic sect bankrolled by the secret service.www.theguardian.com
It is quite odd how often that sort of thing occurs... normally it's total bollocks of course "I've just discovered, my next door neighbour killed the Black Dahlia and he was also the Zodiac".
"Reading through my grandad's diary it turns out he was Jack the Ripper when he was a teenager, then he moved to the US and turned over a new leaf until, just before he died he murdered the Black Dahlia"
IdleRich
IdleRich
I was gonna say the same basically. There is a tv channel that is available here that, well it's not quite dedicated to serial killers, but it is about true crime stuff, and that means that about half of it is about serial killers, and of the other half, about half of that is about unsolved murders that are probably not done by serial killers but could be.
One thing that always strikes me is how insignificant serial killers are in a way. They touch on that in Zodiac when Graysmith says something to Avery or Toschi to try and persuade them to keep pursuing the Zodiac and whoever it is replies "Everyone has forgotten it cos more people die commuting into San Fran each year than Zodiac killed" and I think that there is something quite important being said there that they immediately pull back from and forget about cos it would undermine the whole film.
But, with, for example, Jack the Ripper, most of the women he killed would have probably died soon enough anyway, either because of malnutrition or a damaged liver or freezing to death when they couldn't afford a place for the night - and the situation that causes that is a much bigger crime, but of course one that doesn't have the salacious details of sinister shadowy figures stalking the night and, more importantly, one that can't be solved by just finding one lone nutter, grabbing him off the street and hanging him by the neck until he be dead.
I suppose that is a facile and irritating thing to say but I do always involuntarily think something along those lines when I see someone heroically dedicating their life to stopping some famed killer.
IdleRich
IdleRich
No of course you can't, there is a clear difference between a work of art which may have been inspired by gristly real-world events, and grubbily poring over the actual grim details of those real events - the only reason to draw a comparison between them is in a vain attempt to justify our shabby snooping.