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March 29, 2024, 07:54:30 AM

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True Crime.

Started by bgmnts, February 12, 2020, 07:24:38 PM

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bgmnts

Has anyone else noticed a bit of a surge in true crime documentaries recently? Not just those magazines and some effort on Channel 5 or some obscure high three figure channel on freeview im talking about popular new mediums like Netflix and podcasts. Netflix has come out with a large number of them and the Serial podcast has gripped everyone.

Does this not glorify and sensationalise the fuck out of crime and make even more people to do unspeakable things to get their name in lights on some documentary like this, people creating fan pages and gaining cult followings and the like.

May be a bit mountain out of molehill making but still, just worries me.

Sin Agog

Keep facing straight ahead.  Don't peel your eyes from your monitor.  The sharp intake of breath you make when you see what's behind you may be the last breath you ever take.





























Sin Agog

Also that was easily the worst PS2 game I've ever played.

bgmnts

Quote from: Sin Agog on February 12, 2020, 07:45:17 PM
Also that was easily the worst PS2 game I've ever played.

I liked Streets of LA.

Sin Agog

I remember a fight on top of a train bugging out and not even being a little bit annoyed that it killed my progression.

Sin Agog

Anyway, I feel guilty for doing my instant thread-diversion thing so I'll try and dredge up an opinion on the topic.  There definitely is some prurient peepholery afoot.  I imagine the reason they're so popular with housewives and older women is because not only do they add some rollercoaster-like thrills to their dry lives, but they tend to stoke fears already within them from being from a fairly vulnerable sector of the population.  The biggest True Crime fan I know will barely let her daughter interact with anyone outside of her mother and dad.  In the same way tabloids increase their revenue by fearmongering, to the point where everyone with a moustache is clearly up to something base and evil, they do tend to exploit our inner adrenaline-tweaked gazelle. 

True crime has always been popular, along with stories which are based on true crime. Fritz Lang's M (1931) was based on a real serial killer, The Public Enemy (also 1931) was based on Capone-era gang warfare. Even kindly old Charles Dickens would delve into lurid details about graverobbers or the bloodthirsty frenzied French in the days of The Terror. People are ghouls, it's nothing new.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Wasn't this a fad about five years ago?

imitationleather


Bazooka

Quote from: bgmnts on February 12, 2020, 07:47:30 PM
I liked Streets of LA.

As did I

I don't see a problem, crime will and forever be interesting to us, we have a morale code and those that don't obide like the masses are like a freak show.  They show the beat within in us all, that only manifests in the few.

Netflix has obviously created a boom,  but crime docs have and will always be popular.

I went through a phase of watching hours of police interrogations with murderers.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: imitationleather on February 12, 2020, 08:33:43 PM
It's just reached Wales.

Wales is as close to rural Minnesota as any part of England

Famous Mortimer

I think it'd be interesting to discover if there are any correlations between when true crime stuff is most popular - like, economic woes, real crime waves, that sort of thing.

Thomas

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on February 12, 2020, 09:35:53 PM
I think it'd be interesting to discover if there are any correlations between when true crime stuff is most popular - like, economic woes, real crime waves, that sort of thing.

Everybody who's ever tried to check has been murdered.

oy vey

Quote from: BlodwynPig on February 12, 2020, 09:34:29 PM
Wales is as close to rural Minnesota as any part of England

Great opening line to a true crime podcast. The rest writes itself.

Icehaven

I've definitely noticed the trend. It's not my thing particularly (probably because I get enough of it at work) but I did watch Don't F*** With Cats, mainly because so many people kept asking me if I'd seen it. We had a bloke working with us recently who's case was like something out of true crime doc, and a lot of the staff here treated it exactly like that, appearing at lunchtime to ask about him and what we thought the truth was, dissecting the details like regular armchair sleuths. I dunno how they work here all day then go home and watch more of the same all night, it'd do my head in.


beanheadmcginty

True crime docs were far better back in the days before drones were invented. These days all they are is 90% drone shots flying over some coniferous woodland.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

I love true crime. Also documentaries about disasters. Because I'm a ghoul.

chveik

I hate those reenactments they do. The Jinx would've been reallly great without it.

EOLAN

Quote from: chveik on February 17, 2020, 12:58:30 AM
I hate those reenactments they do. The Jinx would've been reallly great without it.

The Jinx would have been so much better if they didn't overhype the supposed gotcha moment which any amateur barrister could easily explain away as someone ssrcastically mumbling to himself the answers the documentarian is pushing for.

PlanktonSideburns

should have all the reconstructions in lego

chveik

Quote from: EOLAN on February 17, 2020, 08:35:43 AM
The Jinx would have been so much better if they didn't overhype the supposed gotcha moment which any amateur barrister could easily explain away as someone ssrcastically mumbling to himself the answers the documentarian is pushing for.

and that too :)


QDRPHNC

#22
I've been getting really into true crime lately. I'll maybe write more about these later, but the Missy Bevers murder is a really creepy one, due to the video of the suspect. Even creepier was the news footage of her funeral, which seemed to focus to an unnecessary degree on the gait of the guy directing traffic in the parking lot.

The big rabbit hole I went down was the Alcasser Girls, 3 teenagers kidnapped and murdered in Spain. This one was crazy, although I should warn anyone googling it that there are some very graphic images and descriptions out there. But it just goes so deep, so much corruption and details that don't make sense, and seemingly deliberately botched autopsies... just insane. I think I spent about 2 days reading a 100-page long thread in broken English by a Spanish person detailing the whole thing. Just a horrific story. Netflix did a doc on it last year, but I haven't seen it.

bgmnts

Good god even just a few minutes reading about that Spanish case made me want to nuke humanity.

QDRPHNC

Quote from: bgmnts on February 18, 2020, 01:26:16 AM
Good god even just a few minutes reading about that Spanish case made me want to nuke humanity.

Well this is the thing. The details of the crime scene, as presented on Wikipedia (assuming that's where you started), are completely false, according to some. The murderers were apparently patsies to protect wealthy elite types. The volume of conflicting information is staggering.

If anyone is interested, this is the big thread I was talking about (it's 35 pages... it only felt like 100). But far and away the best source of information (both facts and rumours) that I came across.

And just to reiterative - some of the details you'll find in that thread are very disturbing.

QDRPHNC

Oh, one more thing. A great piece of long form journalism I found on a great site called longform.org about the disappearance of 3 women in Florida and the subsequent investigation.

Some murderers are the most unlikely of people.  Your best friend pr mildest workmate could be one.

Icehaven

Quote from: Phoenix Lazarus on February 18, 2020, 07:05:47 AM
Some murderers are the most unlikely of people.  Your best friend pr mildest workmate could be one.

O the stories I could tell you.

popcorn

Quote from: Phoenix Lazarus on February 18, 2020, 07:05:47 AM
Some murderers are the most unlikely of people.  Your best friend pr mildest workmate could be one.

My best friend, PR Mildest Workmate, is a figment of the imagination.

Danger Man

Quote from: QDRPHNC on February 18, 2020, 01:07:59 AM
I've been getting really into true crime lately. I'll maybe write more about these later, but the Missy Bevers murder is a really creepy one, due to the video of the suspect. Even creepier was the news footage of her funeral, which seemed to focus to an unnecessary degree on the gait of the guy directing traffic in the parking lot.

Well the guy in question owned similar clothes to the person in the video and had the same unusual walk and had an alibi of "I was at home when the murder happened" so it seems only right that the police had a good look at him. Bevers' husband appears to have a watertight alibi but I still think he had a part in it.

Some personal faves:

Chris Watts- Not very mysterious but pretty much everything from him returning to his house at the request of the police to the lie detector, interrogation and trial is available on YouTube. The guy's a real jerk.

Jodi Arias- Creepy woman kills boyfriend and almost gets away with it until the prosecutor Juan Martinez goes to town on her and all the defence witnesses. A superb performance by Juan, well worth the 100 hour rabbit hole that's on YouTube.

Maura Murray- True crime podcasters will shed bitter tears if Maura is ever found as she is almost a standalone industry. Girl with some issues drives somewhere at night, has a minor accident and vanishes. Many millions of hours have been spent debating where she might be now.

Brian Shaffer- Bloke goes into a bar. Doesn't come out. Where is he? An important case as it made the podcasters True Crime Garage famous and they are very good at true crime stuff.

Fave podcasters:

Gen Why are my number one. Two intelligent young men who are good at storytelling and have sensible opinions.

True Crime Garage are famous now and may have peaked. But at their best they are very good indeed.

LordonArts A bloke on Youtube who is unusual in being so concerned about the crimes he comments on. A genuinely nice guy in a rather seedy industry.