It's a respectable docudrama of the Hillside Strangler case of the 1970s -- two cousins, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, here played by Billy Zane and Dennis Farina, who kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered a number of young women in the Los Angeles area before dumping their bodies in display positions in places like freeway underpasses. Richard Crenna is Bob Grogan, the detective in charge of the case.
Zane and Farina are both pretty good. Zane is younger, darker, handsome in an almost feminine way. Farina, by contrast, is feral and stronger and suggests some kind of animal sexuality. The writers and actors get the personality contrasts just right as well. Zane is impulsive and irresponsible, the kind of psychopath who eventually gets so cocky that he overreaches. Farina is more serious, more sensible, able to reign in his impulses.
Richard Crenna, the proxy for the audience, isn't really given much to do. I don't know whether there was a real Bob Grogan or not but the script gives him a nosy and reckless girl friend. Crenna was a Los Angeles native but he adopts an accent suggestive of New York City.
Zane's character, Kenneth Bianchi, isn't a very interesting murderer. He a more-or-less garden variety type of personality that used to be called "psychopathic." He's driven by impulses of the moment, lacks the morality most people suffer from, and the anxiety that goes with it, and easily adopts different personalities. He poses for a while as a clinical psychologist with fake diplomas. To him, the murders are a game.
Buono was more interesting, "a guy who works hard all day and kills women at night," as Crenna puts it. He's sociable and normal in a working-class way, with no history of psychopathology. He gets married during the spree. His only quirk seems to be that thing about torturing and murdering young women.
It's another serial killer story. They come at us in droves. This one is no more enlightening than the rest when it comes to explanations. All of us can at least understand someone who murders a spouse, a friend, or a child. These are people whose opinions we care about. They're people in a position to hurt us. We can even grasp, with some effort, the motives of those who murder celebrities or assassinate political figures -- the power to alter the direction of everyday culture. And, if you're caught, for a few minutes everyone knows your name and face. But there is a preposterous quality to serial murders. Who enjoys killing strangers? What's the point? What's worrisome is that some day we may find out, and the results may not reflect well on our conception of ordinary human nature. They're a rare species, but those serial killers will have done more damage than they know.
Zane and Farina are both pretty good. Zane is younger, darker, handsome in an almost feminine way. Farina, by contrast, is feral and stronger and suggests some kind of animal sexuality. The writers and actors get the personality contrasts just right as well. Zane is impulsive and irresponsible, the kind of psychopath who eventually gets so cocky that he overreaches. Farina is more serious, more sensible, able to reign in his impulses.
Richard Crenna, the proxy for the audience, isn't really given much to do. I don't know whether there was a real Bob Grogan or not but the script gives him a nosy and reckless girl friend. Crenna was a Los Angeles native but he adopts an accent suggestive of New York City.
Zane's character, Kenneth Bianchi, isn't a very interesting murderer. He a more-or-less garden variety type of personality that used to be called "psychopathic." He's driven by impulses of the moment, lacks the morality most people suffer from, and the anxiety that goes with it, and easily adopts different personalities. He poses for a while as a clinical psychologist with fake diplomas. To him, the murders are a game.
Buono was more interesting, "a guy who works hard all day and kills women at night," as Crenna puts it. He's sociable and normal in a working-class way, with no history of psychopathology. He gets married during the spree. His only quirk seems to be that thing about torturing and murdering young women.
It's another serial killer story. They come at us in droves. This one is no more enlightening than the rest when it comes to explanations. All of us can at least understand someone who murders a spouse, a friend, or a child. These are people whose opinions we care about. They're people in a position to hurt us. We can even grasp, with some effort, the motives of those who murder celebrities or assassinate political figures -- the power to alter the direction of everyday culture. And, if you're caught, for a few minutes everyone knows your name and face. But there is a preposterous quality to serial murders. Who enjoys killing strangers? What's the point? What's worrisome is that some day we may find out, and the results may not reflect well on our conception of ordinary human nature. They're a rare species, but those serial killers will have done more damage than they know.
