True crime is big right now, as the the last season of Mindhunter reminds us. Travis Johnson goes back through cinema history to find the 10 most unsettling movies based on real-life crimes.
You may be a seasoned horror fan, accustomed to wading through gallons of ogre and oceans of blood in your search for new cinematic thrills and chills. But there’s something about true crime that unsettles even the most jaundiced gore hound. Watching Freddie, Jason, and Michael dispatch hordes of hapless teens is one thing; knowing that what you’re seeing really happened (more or less…) is another.
True crime is undeniably in the zeitgeist right now, with podcasts aplenty, and movies and TV series by the dozen. With the second season of Netflix’s acclaimed serial killer procedural, Mindhunter, having recently dropped, we take a look back at some of the most disturbing big screen true tales of terror…
In Cold Blood (1967)
Robert Blake and Scott Wilson are killers Perry Smith Richard “Dick” Hickock, in this adaptation of Truman Capote’s landmark true crime novel. Director Richard Brooks added verisimilitude by filming at some of the Kansas locations where the pair’s crime spree occurred, lending the proceedings a haunting – or perhaps haunted tone. The material has been revisited plenty of times since, notably in 2005’s Capote and 2006’s Infamous, but the original retains a stark, brooding power that has never been matched.
10 Rillington Place (1971)
A rare British excursion into the genre, with none other than Richard Attenborough as literal ladykiller John Christie, who satisfied his murderous and necrophiliac urges at the titular address. For all the depravity on display, director Richard Fleischer’s British restraint lends the proceedings a weirdly austere flavor, which if anything else heightens the horror.
Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Loosely based on the stomach-churning career of Henry Lee Lucas, John McNaughton’s lo-fi drama sees future Guardian of the Galaxy Michael Rooker as the titular murderer, who drifts from town to town, dispatching his victims in a variety of horrifying ways. With its grimy, workaday demeanour and rough-hewn, inarticulate protagonist, Henry is the working-class alternative to Silence of the Lambs’ more refined horrors.
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Between his early schlocktastic cheapies and his later trips to Hobbiton, Peter Jackson made this incredible account of one of New Zealand’s most infamous murders. Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet are the schoolgirl lovers whose mutual obsession leads them to create their own richly detailed fantasy world just big enough for two. When Lynskey’s mother intrudes, so does reality in the form of a brutal killing with a half-brick in a stocking.
Bully (2001)
Kids director Larry Clarke returns – as is his frequent wont – to the milieu of amoral, promiscuous, vacuous American youth to tell the tale of Bobby Kent (Nick Stahl), the bully of the title, who is eventually straight-up butchered by the coterie of pretty young things (Brad Renfro, Bijou Phillips, Rachel Miner, Kelli Garner, Michael Pitt, Leo Fitzpatrick) he’s kept under his brutal thumb for so long. Clarke’s trademark exploitative nihilism is in full flight here, and the depiction of the actual murder is genuinely upsetting.
Monster (2003)
Before Patty Jenkins brought Wonder Woman to the big screen and Charlize Theron strapped on Furiosa’s metal arm, they shocked the world with this account of the life of sex worker and serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who murdered several of her clients in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Theron picked up a Best Actress Oscar for her transformative turn as Wuornos. The film is notable for its ambiguity and complexity, unflinchingly portraying both Wuornos’ horrible circumstances and her extreme mental illness.
Zodiac (2007)
Don’t mistake this for a Marvel movie, but yes, Robert Downey, Jr., Mark Ruffalo, and Jake Gyllenhaal as three men – a reporter, a cop, and a cartoonist, respectively – who become obsessed with tracking down the elusive Zodiac Killer who prowled San Francisco in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Director David Fincher’s best film is a meticulous recreation of a time, a place, and a case. The lack of a concrete villain (the Zodiac was never caught) makes it all the more unnerving.
Snowtown (2011)
Australian director Justin Kurzel’s debut feature is a the grimmest of grim slogs. It’s a bleak journey through the grimy underbelly of Australian suburbia, inevitably leading to the horrifying murders uncovered by the “bodies in the barrels” scandal. And ultimately, killer and de facto cult leader John Bunting, played with chilling charisma by Daniel Henshall. Absolutely worth watching, and very hard to watch twice.
Foxcatcher (2014)
It’s Mark Ruffalo again, this time starring with Channing Tatum as wrestling brothers Dave and Mark Schultz. They come into the orbit of philanthropist, pharmaceutical heir and wrestling enthusiast John E. du Pont (Steve Carell), who is basically batcrap insane due to his vast wealth, lack of any tangible checks on his behaviour, and crippling mummy issues. Murder inevitably ensues, but not before a lot of psychological game-playing and straight-up weirdness. One of the most bloodless films on the list, but also one of the most genuinely creepy.
Spotlight (2015)
It’s the Ruffalo trifecta! Sometimes the real-life criminal is institutional, not individual. In this case it’s the Catholic Church, whose habit of hiding pedophile priests was uncovered by the Boston Globe newspaper’s crack investigatory team, of which our Mark is one, along with Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Live Schreiber and more. A crackling procedural drama that was deservedly lauded come awards season, the scope of the horrors it lays bare is still chilling.
