Fascinated by the human brain and its capacity for ruthlessness, psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis has spent her life investigating the interior lives of violent people. With each case, she came closer to developing a unified field theory of what makes a killer. Along the way - steering away from the conventional wisdom of her colleagues - she explored the world of multiple personality disorder.
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Between 1962 and 1966, sex murderer Jurgen Bartsch cruelly tortured and killed four children in an old air raid bunker in Germany. This documentary examines the personality of the killer who died in 1976 during voluntary castration surgery at the age of 30. Vilified by the press for his heinous crime, Bartsch also became a case study for famous found criminal psychologists like Alice Miller (who maintains that no one abuses without being abused as a child, and murderers tend to have their own childhood abuse denied by the adults around them). Bartsch never met his birth parents, he was raised in a clinic and later adopted by a cold, unaffectionate couple. By the age of 15, he tortured and killed his first child victim. This informative, fact-filled documentary provides enough details for viewers to come away with a broader understanding of the nature of the criminally insane and society's role in their formation.
The Slenderman Stabbing (2024)
A 12 year old girl dead. Killed by her two best friends. What could have happened to cause this? What could have twisted them to do this? Who could have twisted them to commit murder? Only one thing is capable of this ... Slenderman. Based on a true story.
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Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)
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Serial Killer Culture (2014)
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When Lonnie Franklin Jr. was arrested in South Central Los Angeles in 2010 as the suspected murderer of a string of young black women, police hailed it as the culmination of 20 years of investigations. Four years later documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield took his camera to the alleged killer’s neighborhood for another view.
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In 1970s California, a serial killer dumps young boys' bodies along the freeways. An L.A. street reporter on the case receives information that embroils him in the dilemma of a lifetime. Decades later, lost confession tapes help experts uncover the truth.
Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003)
British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.
Evil Among Us: Ted Bundy (2022)
To the outside world, Ted Bundy was a law student, devoted friend, and church-going family man, but below the surface lurked something darker….a serial killer who took the lives of thirty young women in sadistic fits of rage. What drove Bundy’s insatiable appetite? How did he get away with it for so long? Were there any signs? And how has this maniacal killer made us reconsider the evil that may be hiding in our midst?
Black Serial Killers:Truth or Fiction (2023)
America has a fascination with serial killers. Many of them are household names, Ted Bundy, John Wade Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer. But there is another group of serial killers with even higher body counts. However, chances are you've never heard of Samuel Little, The Grim Sleeper, or The Sunday Morning Slasher. Combined these men have 85 confirmed murders. There are no books, movies, or television shows about these killers. Why? Because they are black serial killers. Filmmaker Sean Reid explores black serial killers and the lack of public information and media representation about them. Reid interviews Allan Branson, a criminal justice professor. Branson discusses the history of African-American serial killers and the negative stereotypes and biases that have influenced their portrayal in the media.
