Netflix do true crime like no other. Arty archive footage, both grainy and gory sits next to perfectly lit present-day interviews, played over a hipster soundtrack which wouldn’t seem out of place in an angsty teen’s bedroom.
But after watching this one, we’re hoping that bedroom isn’t in a Los Angeles home in the mid-1980s, with the infamous Night Stalker on the loose…
Richard Ramirez is the focus of Netflix’s latest serial killer series, a man who attacked, abducted, murdered and sexually assaulted men and women of aged six to 83 at the dead of night. Maybe don’t watch this one before bed…
The series’ director, Tiller Russell said that he wanted to ‘deglamourize’ the killer by letting the perspectives of the police and his victims sit front and centre, and in that regard, he succeeds – we only really see Ramirez right at the end, in some facial composites. But we’re not quite convinced that was enough deglamourizing – there’s still the classic Netflix shots of blood soaked murder weapons, and the moody lighting they used to interview survivors is unlikely to be accidental.
But if you forget that Russell made this his mission, there’s a great series here that fans of the true crime genre are sure to go mad for. Just hopefully not quite as mad as the Night Stalker…
It seems The Times’ Ben Dowell can be listed as a fan of the genre, after he called Night Stalker “addictive television,” with “great storytelling.” The Guardian’s Stuart Jeffries critiques the show by commenting “There was too much about the hunters not enough about the hunted,” but admits the series “did give us a clearer idea of why we want to watch true-crime documentaries. We, like Ramirez, are voyeurs.” Louis Chilton from the Independent agrees we spent too long with the cops, writing “too much time is spent fixated on the bland factual minutiae of the investigation.” And he goes on to criticise the series, saying: “leave aside the sinister tone and genre clichés, and you’re left with not all that much: no exploration of evil, just a rote itinerising of it.”
First shown January 2021. You can watch the trailer by pressing play on the show image, or by clicking here:
