Night Stalker: The Hunt For a Serial Killer (Limited Series Review)
Night Stalker: The Hunt For a Serial Killer
2021 Netflix
Limited Series
The Nicsperiment Score: 8/10
Between the summers of 1984 and 1985, a man terrorized the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, murdering, mutilating, and sexually assaulting at minimum, 18 people, including men and women, several of these elderly persons or children. The crimes lacked rhyme or reason, with victims seemingly chosen at random. The only common thread appeared to be the apparently Satan-obsessed perpetrator. Meanwhile, two Los Angeles police detectives, Gil Carrillo and Frank Salerno, worked tirelessly to catch this serial offender, at great cost to their own personal lives.
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Several charges have been levied at Netflix's latest true crime docuseries hit. One is on point--the highly stylized and atmospheric Night Stalker can sometimes feel callous in the way it flashes gruesome crime scene photos on screen without warning. Those moments don't quite feel like they're being done out of shock value, but then again, they're missing a certain sensitivity. At the same time, the actual human cost isn't exactly overlooked--Night Stalker is stuffed with interviews of not just family members of the deceased, but with those who survived the perpetrator's gruesome attacks, as well. Indeed, Night Stalker does an excellent job of making the people of Los Angeles the true protagonist of the series. This creates a true catharsis in the final episode, when the citizens of the city themselves band together to finally bring their tormentor to justice.
Likewise, the detectives, Carrillo and Salerno, feel like extensions of the city itself. The two are often front and center in the series' interviews and reenactments, but the killer's affect on them is shown to be just as potent as it is to the city in which they reside. Carrillo, in particular, has a young family that has to be sent away for their own protection, and the film's myriad interview segments with Carrillo's wife show just how heavy the case weighed upon and stressed their family. Indeed, the human cost is felt again and again in Night Stalker, all the way to Carrillo's haunting final line before the credits roll. That's what vexes me a bit about some of Night Stalker's negative critical reviews--
Most of those reviews don't focus on the content of Night Stalker, or what the four-episode docuseries is about, but upon what those particular reviewers wish Night Stalker was about. Yes, there were other things going on in L.A. at the time. Yes, there were several very negative things going on within the Los Angeles police department. This docuseries isn't called The Systemic Injustices of Los Angeles in the Mid-80's. That's a worthwhile, yet completely different topic. This docuseries is called Night Stalker, though. It is about the trauma induced upon the city of Los Angeles by a killer nicknamed The Night Stalker by the local press. It is, by nature and design, limited in its scope. Since when does everything have to be about absolutely everything? Night Stalker is about one thing--and it tells its true-life story about that one thing quite well.
Several charges have been levied at Netflix's latest true crime docuseries hit. One is on point--the highly stylized and atmospheric Night Stalker can sometimes feel callous in the way it flashes gruesome crime scene photos on screen without warning. Those moments don't quite feel like they're being done out of shock value, but then again, they're missing a certain sensitivity. At the same time, the actual human cost isn't exactly overlooked--Night Stalker is stuffed with interviews of not just family members of the deceased, but with those who survived the perpetrator's gruesome attacks, as well. Indeed, Night Stalker does an excellent job of making the people of Los Angeles the true protagonist of the series. This creates a true catharsis in the final episode, when the citizens of the city themselves band together to finally bring their tormentor to justice.
Likewise, the detectives, Carrillo and Salerno, feel like extensions of the city itself. The two are often front and center in the series' interviews and reenactments, but the killer's affect on them is shown to be just as potent as it is to the city in which they reside. Carrillo, in particular, has a young family that has to be sent away for their own protection, and the film's myriad interview segments with Carrillo's wife show just how heavy the case weighed upon and stressed their family. Indeed, the human cost is felt again and again in Night Stalker, all the way to Carrillo's haunting final line before the credits roll. That's what vexes me a bit about some of Night Stalker's negative critical reviews--
Most of those reviews don't focus on the content of Night Stalker, or what the four-episode docuseries is about, but upon what those particular reviewers wish Night Stalker was about. Yes, there were other things going on in L.A. at the time. Yes, there were several very negative things going on within the Los Angeles police department. This docuseries isn't called The Systemic Injustices of Los Angeles in the Mid-80's. That's a worthwhile, yet completely different topic. This docuseries is called Night Stalker, though. It is about the trauma induced upon the city of Los Angeles by a killer nicknamed The Night Stalker by the local press. It is, by nature and design, limited in its scope. Since when does everything have to be about absolutely everything? Night Stalker is about one thing--and it tells its true-life story about that one thing quite well.
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