The story of Aileen Wuornos has been advised earlier than – within the 1992 documentary Aileen Wuornos: The Promoting of a Serial Killer; within the 1992 film Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story, by which she was performed by Jean Sensible; and within the 2003 film Monster, the place she was performed by Charlize Theron. And now it is being advised once more in Netflix’s Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers.
The 1992 documentary has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes crucial ranking, the 1992 film was properly acquired and the 2003 film gained an Oscar for Theron. Which makes me surprise: why return to such a well-trodden path? What a part of this horrible story hasn’t already been advised, and advised properly?
Who was Aileen Wuornos?
Wuornos was executed in 2002 for the murders of seven males in Florida in a case that gripped the entire nation. Wuornos, a intercourse employee with a horrific previous, claimed that her first killing was in self-defense however pleaded no contest to the others.
That first plea varieties a key a part of the brand new documentary, which presents her testimony a couple of brutal sexual assault – and which does not lower away for speaking heads to remark, letting Wuornos inform her story with out interruption. The movie additionally exhibits the broader image: the bias towards her as a girl and as a intercourse employee, the sensational information reporting, the stunning rhetoric of the lead prosecutor and extra.
The objective, says director Emily Turner, is to drop you into the investigation: “We wished it to really feel such as you had been watching the rushes of the story unfolding with the individuals who had been on the within,” she advised Netflix’s Tudum.
“It’s a lot simpler to jot down off somebody who’s accomplished such heinous acts as a cold-blooded assassin fairly than a deeply broken human,” Turner explains. “Truly, she was made, and that’s chilling.”
That is to not say that the brand new documentary is taking Wuornos’s aspect. “There are some individuals who discuss whether or not she’s a feminist icon. I believe the reality of what she did is brutal,” Turner says. “There are victims on the forefront of this, they usually stay on the forefront of our minds.”
She continues: “We would like her to be both the hapless sufferer the place society created her, and life simply occurred to her – or she’s this cold-blooded assassin. I don’t suppose both of them does her justice. She’s charismatic, and she or he’s a killer. … It’s simply a lot simpler to be categorical,” Turner says. “However that’s not life, is it?”
Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers is streaming now on Netflix.
Observe TechRadar on Google Information and add us as a most well-liked supply to get our skilled information, critiques, and opinion in your feeds. Be certain that to click on the Observe button!
And naturally you can even comply with TechRadar on TikTok for information, critiques, unboxings in video kind, and get common updates from us on WhatsApp too.
The very best TVs for all budgets
