Found-footage horror — that thing you never want to see again, until once every couple years someone finds a fresh angle — meets “The King of Comedy,” of all things, in “Late Night With the Devil.” The third feature from enterprising Aussie siblings Colin and Cameron Cairnes kicks up a notch their flair for bringing novel twists to familiar genre tropes, by positing occult mayhem during a live broadcast of a 1970s network talk show.
The resulting mix of vintage Me Decade showbiz cheese and “Exorcist”-y demonic doings is distinctive, not to mention deftly handled by the brothers as both writers and directors. Well-received at its SXSW premiere, this clever high-concept gambit should raise its makers’ profile, likely inviting some Hollywood offers — which one suspects they’d be open to, given this is their first project set (though not produced) in the U.S. rather than on home turf.
An eight-minute...
The resulting mix of vintage Me Decade showbiz cheese and “Exorcist”-y demonic doings is distinctive, not to mention deftly handled by the brothers as both writers and directors. Well-received at its SXSW premiere, this clever high-concept gambit should raise its makers’ profile, likely inviting some Hollywood offers — which one suspects they’d be open to, given this is their first project set (though not produced) in the U.S. rather than on home turf.
An eight-minute...
- 3/23/2023
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on Wbgr-fm on March 16th, 2023, reviewing “Boston Strangler,” another film version of one of the most notorious crimes of the 1960s. Streaming on Hulu beginning March 17th.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
The real life crimes, which took place between 1962 and 1964, is realized through the two reporters who broke the story. Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) is a woman journalist who is relegated to the “Lifestyle” section, but really wants to work reporting on crime, a difficult beat for a woman to tap into during the 1960s. When Loretta notices a correlation between the killings that police don’t pick up, her editor Jack (Chris Cooper) reluctantly assigns her the story, pairing her with a more veteran female investigative reporter Jean Cole (Carrie Coon). They begin to unravel the killer’s story, even coming up with the term “Boston Strangler.” All...
Rating: 3.5/5.0
The real life crimes, which took place between 1962 and 1964, is realized through the two reporters who broke the story. Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) is a woman journalist who is relegated to the “Lifestyle” section, but really wants to work reporting on crime, a difficult beat for a woman to tap into during the 1960s. When Loretta notices a correlation between the killings that police don’t pick up, her editor Jack (Chris Cooper) reluctantly assigns her the story, pairing her with a more veteran female investigative reporter Jean Cole (Carrie Coon). They begin to unravel the killer’s story, even coming up with the term “Boston Strangler.” All...
- 3/21/2023
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
In 1962, Loretta McLaughlin, a reporter at the Boston Record-American, noticed a small item buried on page five of a local paper. It detailed the murder of a woman who had been found strangled in her apartment. Something about this seems familiar to McLaughlin, who digs through some old clippings and finds a story about a widow who’d also been strangled in a different neighborhood. The details of the crimes are oddly similar. She’s been itching to get away from the lifestyle desk and get her hands on a good,...
- 3/18/2023
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Boston Strangler is a thriller movie starring Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon. It is written and directed by Matt Ruskin.
Good photography, good performances… in a film that wants to be more of a vindication than a thriller and more All the President’s Men than Silence of the Lambs.
That said, Hulu and 20th Century Studios surprise with this very good, excellently set, period production.
Movie Review
A film that would be better called Loretta McLaughlin. Based on this journalist, who worked at the Boston Globe, the film uses the figure of the sadly infamous Boston Strangler in order to compose a whole defence statement of sexist injustices of that period that will leave thriller lovers feeling a little bit “this movie was not meant to be about that”, and those who want to see a good courtroom drama with a face of “I have not come to see...
Good photography, good performances… in a film that wants to be more of a vindication than a thriller and more All the President’s Men than Silence of the Lambs.
That said, Hulu and 20th Century Studios surprise with this very good, excellently set, period production.
Movie Review
A film that would be better called Loretta McLaughlin. Based on this journalist, who worked at the Boston Globe, the film uses the figure of the sadly infamous Boston Strangler in order to compose a whole defence statement of sexist injustices of that period that will leave thriller lovers feeling a little bit “this movie was not meant to be about that”, and those who want to see a good courtroom drama with a face of “I have not come to see...
- 3/17/2023
- by Martin Cid
- Martin Cid Magazine - Movies
True crime is all the range. It has been this way for many years now, with Netflix seemingly tripping over its own feet to get the next serial killer mini-series out the door. Dramatizations are big business too with Ryan Murphy’s Monster: Jeffrey Dahmer already planned for two more seasons focusing on “”stories of other monstrous figures who have impacted society”, keeping the murders off screen for the most part. It’s a wise choice both tonally and narratively – with the exception of one case that has a DNA link between Albert DeSalvo and 19-year-old victim Mary Sullivan – it’s not entirely clear exactly who carried out all of the murders, with many theorizing it was multiple different killers.
Set in the early-mid .60s, period detail is recreated with care. However, the gray and beige tones give an almost sepia effect – evocative of the past, but a bit drab to look at.
Set in the early-mid .60s, period detail is recreated with care. However, the gray and beige tones give an almost sepia effect – evocative of the past, but a bit drab to look at.
- 3/17/2023
- by Rosie Fletcher
- Den of Geek
The story of the infamous serial-killer case nicknamed the Boston Strangler involved 13 sexual assaults and murders in the Boston area between 1962 and 1964. Officially, 12 of them have never been solved. The 13th, decades later, was proven through DNA techniques to be the chief suspect, and self-confessed “Boston Strangler” Albert DeSalvo. He was famously represented by F. Lee Bailey, who later would write a book about the case.
Related Story ‘Boston Strangler’ Trailer: Keira Knightley Leads 20th’s True-Crime Thriller For Hulu Related Story Demi Lovato Making Directorial Debut With 'Child Star' Documentary at Hulu Related Story Criminologist Docuseries 'The Lesson Is Murder' Set At Hulu From ABC News Studios The Boston Strangler, 1968 20th Century Fox
The fact that there were, and still are, so many questions about it all did not deter Hollywood and others from exploiting the case to various degrees — most famously in the 1968 20th Century Fox...
Related Story ‘Boston Strangler’ Trailer: Keira Knightley Leads 20th’s True-Crime Thriller For Hulu Related Story Demi Lovato Making Directorial Debut With 'Child Star' Documentary at Hulu Related Story Criminologist Docuseries 'The Lesson Is Murder' Set At Hulu From ABC News Studios The Boston Strangler, 1968 20th Century Fox
The fact that there were, and still are, so many questions about it all did not deter Hollywood and others from exploiting the case to various degrees — most famously in the 1968 20th Century Fox...
- 3/17/2023
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
In the revelatory Boston Strangler, Matt Ruskin (Crown Heights) flips a well-known saga on its head. The story has been told onscreen many times, first and most famously in a 1968 feature starring Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda. In that movie, released only a few years after a series of murders targeted single women in their Boston-area apartments, the only female characters of note are victims. A select group of upstanding male detectives puzzle over the lurid details of the crimes and wax psychological about the perp. They get their man. Then came the straight-to-video thrillers about Albert DeSalvo, the confessed but not quite proven killer, and the countless episodes of true-crime series. This time around, the investigator played by Fonda has just one scene and a couple of lines; the center instead belongs to the two female reporters who broke the story and, in the process, put the Boston Pd on notice.
- 3/16/2023
- by Sheri Linden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The infamous Boston Strangler killed more than 11 single women between the ages of 19 and 85 in the greater Boston area between 1962 and 1964. A 1968 film starring Tony Curtis captured that reign of terror, but it took over half a century to tell the true story of the female reporters who uncovered the case.
Matt Ruskin’s “Boston Strangler,” starring Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon, to which true crime addicts are so accustomed. Instead, the writer-director gets right to the point and follows the rules of news journalism: Keep the lede direct, the triangle inverted, and limit foreplay.
And that’s what the most haunting realization of “Boston Strangler” is: We are looking for the sex in it, the presentation of facts as fiction, and the horrors represented onscreen. But the most graphic moment we see comes 38 minutes into the film; the most salacious element is a headline that Boston is plagued by an “orgy of murders.
Matt Ruskin’s “Boston Strangler,” starring Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon, to which true crime addicts are so accustomed. Instead, the writer-director gets right to the point and follows the rules of news journalism: Keep the lede direct, the triangle inverted, and limit foreplay.
And that’s what the most haunting realization of “Boston Strangler” is: We are looking for the sex in it, the presentation of facts as fiction, and the horrors represented onscreen. But the most graphic moment we see comes 38 minutes into the film; the most salacious element is a headline that Boston is plagued by an “orgy of murders.
- 3/16/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Knightley and Carrie Coon star as journalists whose persistent reporting forced the cops and city hall to take notice of a series of murders of women in the early 1960s
Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon do their professional best with this stolid and inhibited TV-movie-style trudge through a gruesome true-crime story: the Boston Strangler, the US serial killer to whom police and press attributed 13 murders of women in Boston during the early 1960s. A confession for all 13 was secured from one Albert DeSalvo, but with forensic evidence linking him to only the last victim. Just four years after DeSalvo conviction, Tony Curtis famously went against his dreamboat image by playing him in a brassy film with Henry Fonda as the detective on his trail.
This version tries getting to grips with the possibility of multiple culprits and that the Boston Strangler was in fact a misogynist hivemind phenomenon. It moreover...
Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon do their professional best with this stolid and inhibited TV-movie-style trudge through a gruesome true-crime story: the Boston Strangler, the US serial killer to whom police and press attributed 13 murders of women in Boston during the early 1960s. A confession for all 13 was secured from one Albert DeSalvo, but with forensic evidence linking him to only the last victim. Just four years after DeSalvo conviction, Tony Curtis famously went against his dreamboat image by playing him in a brassy film with Henry Fonda as the detective on his trail.
This version tries getting to grips with the possibility of multiple culprits and that the Boston Strangler was in fact a misogynist hivemind phenomenon. It moreover...
- 3/16/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The latest film from writer-director Matt Ruskin begins in media res as an attentive neighbor overhears an attack on a female tenant in the unit next door. As he bangs on the door, the words “Inspired by a True Story” appear onscreen as the attacker turns up the radio to disguise the murder.
There are several attack scenes in Boston Strangler, which follows real life journalist Loretta McLaughlin (Kiera Knightley) as she embarks on an obsessive investigation of a serial killer targeting women in Boston from 1962 and 1964.
This first attack is the sparsest: it’s all strategic framing and sound effects to imply violence. This won’t always hold true, however; several other sequences of gendered violence are more explicit and sustained. But while the female victims were sexually assaulted and strangled, Ruskin and director of photography Ben Kutchins are careful not to sensationalize the crimes.
The gendered nature of...
There are several attack scenes in Boston Strangler, which follows real life journalist Loretta McLaughlin (Kiera Knightley) as she embarks on an obsessive investigation of a serial killer targeting women in Boston from 1962 and 1964.
This first attack is the sparsest: it’s all strategic framing and sound effects to imply violence. This won’t always hold true, however; several other sequences of gendered violence are more explicit and sustained. But while the female victims were sexually assaulted and strangled, Ruskin and director of photography Ben Kutchins are careful not to sensationalize the crimes.
The gendered nature of...
- 3/16/2023
- by Joe Lipsett
- bloody-disgusting.com
Keira Knightley stars in the Hulu Original Boston Strangler Image: Hulu For decades, police procedurals were a staple of the cinematic diet. Whether ripped from the headlines or crafted solely from writers’ imaginations, viewers could count on crime dramas rooted less in mystery than the long arm of justice finally...
- 3/16/2023
- by Brent Simon
- avclub.com
In the early 1960s, 13 women were murdered around the Boston area. Most were strangled with their own nylon stockings, leading the press to dub the murderer the “Boston Strangler.” That title also lends itself to Matt Ruskin’s newest feature on the killings, which foregrounds the reporting of Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) and Jean Cole (Carrie Coon) for the Record American. They not only coined the name but also wrote a four-part series highlighting the investigative gridlock that kept police from discovering the killer and kept the city on edge.
It’s a fascinating story that has been told before, to much less successful results, in 1968’s The Boston Strangler. Here, however, writer-director Matt Ruskin wisely hones in on McLaughlin, Cole, and the media circus that erupted during the killings. Despite dependable performances from Knightley and Coon, who honestly couldn’t be bad in anything, Boston Strangler is workmanlike above all,...
It’s a fascinating story that has been told before, to much less successful results, in 1968’s The Boston Strangler. Here, however, writer-director Matt Ruskin wisely hones in on McLaughlin, Cole, and the media circus that erupted during the killings. Despite dependable performances from Knightley and Coon, who honestly couldn’t be bad in anything, Boston Strangler is workmanlike above all,...
- 3/16/2023
- by Christian Gallichio
- The Film Stage
Plot: A true-crime thriller about the trailblazing reporters who broke the story of the notorious Boston Strangler murders of the 1960s.
Review: The notorious serial killer known as The Boston Strangler is a case that captivated the world in the 1960s and spawned a film almost fifty years ago starring Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo. In the decades since DeSalvo’s confession and trial, theories have emerged that the Boston murders could have been committed by multiple killers, of which DeSalvo can only be concretely linked to one. This new film from writer/director Matt Ruskin chronicles the quest of two reporters to help stop the Strangler and gives context to the city of Boston as it was on edge for years as the killer brutally dispatched women of all ages. With a solid lead from Keira Knightley, this intriguing drama emulates David Fincher’s Zodiac while not capturing the...
Review: The notorious serial killer known as The Boston Strangler is a case that captivated the world in the 1960s and spawned a film almost fifty years ago starring Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo. In the decades since DeSalvo’s confession and trial, theories have emerged that the Boston murders could have been committed by multiple killers, of which DeSalvo can only be concretely linked to one. This new film from writer/director Matt Ruskin chronicles the quest of two reporters to help stop the Strangler and gives context to the city of Boston as it was on edge for years as the killer brutally dispatched women of all ages. With a solid lead from Keira Knightley, this intriguing drama emulates David Fincher’s Zodiac while not capturing the...
- 3/16/2023
- by Alex Maidy
- JoBlo.com
Image Source: Everett Collection
The heinous crimes of the Boston Strangler are at the center of Hulu's latest crime thriller, "Boston Strangler," which hits the platform on March 17. The original film stars Keira Knightley as Loretta McLaughlin, a Boston Record American investigative reporter determined to solve a string of sexually motivated serial killings in Boston in the 1960s. Along with fellow reporter Jean Cole (Carrie Coon), McLaughlin covered the killer's 13 murders until his eventual arrest in 1964.
The Boston Strangler has been referenced in entertainment several times since his crimes occurred, most notably in the 1968 film "The Boston Strangler," starring Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda. Still, the story itself - including the women that helped bring it to light - has gotten lost with the high-profile crimes that succeeded it. Ahead of the upcoming "Boston Strangler" premiere, here is the true story behind the murders that shook Boston.
What Did the Boston Strangler Do?...
The heinous crimes of the Boston Strangler are at the center of Hulu's latest crime thriller, "Boston Strangler," which hits the platform on March 17. The original film stars Keira Knightley as Loretta McLaughlin, a Boston Record American investigative reporter determined to solve a string of sexually motivated serial killings in Boston in the 1960s. Along with fellow reporter Jean Cole (Carrie Coon), McLaughlin covered the killer's 13 murders until his eventual arrest in 1964.
The Boston Strangler has been referenced in entertainment several times since his crimes occurred, most notably in the 1968 film "The Boston Strangler," starring Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda. Still, the story itself - including the women that helped bring it to light - has gotten lost with the high-profile crimes that succeeded it. Ahead of the upcoming "Boston Strangler" premiere, here is the true story behind the murders that shook Boston.
What Did the Boston Strangler Do?...
- 2/24/2023
- by Alicia Geigel
- Popsugar.com
Keira Knightley is going back in time once again - and this time to a particularly terrifying slice of history: 1960s Boston, when a killer known as the Boston Strangler was on the prowl. The first trailer for the movie, titled "Boston Strangler," dropped on Feb. 21, and in it, Knightly plays journalist Loretta McLaughlin, who was the first to realize there was a connection between a series of murders. That eventually leads her towards a serial killer who would become known as the Boston Strangler.
The Boston Strangler killed a total of at least 11 women between 1962 and 1964, per Biography. Eventually, a man named Albert DeSalvo confessed to the murders while already in prison, though he was not charged for the case and was found dead in his cell in 1973. In 2013, per New Scientist, DNA evidence finally proved that he was the killer.
Related: Watch These Netflix True-Crime Documentaries With Caution...
The Boston Strangler killed a total of at least 11 women between 1962 and 1964, per Biography. Eventually, a man named Albert DeSalvo confessed to the murders while already in prison, though he was not charged for the case and was found dead in his cell in 1973. In 2013, per New Scientist, DNA evidence finally proved that he was the killer.
Related: Watch These Netflix True-Crime Documentaries With Caution...
- 2/21/2023
- by Eden Arielle Gordon
- Popsugar.com
If you’re still obsessed with “Zodiac,” you’re going to want to check out “Boston Strangler.” Writer-director Matt Ruskin’s new film is in the same vein as David Fincher’s 2007 true crime classic, as both films follow an out-of-their-depth newspaper reporter as they investigate a string of murders that have their city on edge in the 1960s. On Tuesday, Hulu and 20th Century Studios put out a new trailer for the film, which will be released exclusively on Hulu on March 17.
In “Boston Strangler,” the Jake Gyllenhaal reporter role is played by Keira Knightley. The two-time Oscar nominee is doing a rare American accent as Loretta McLaughlin, the Boston Record-American journalist who broke the story and coined the term “Boston Strangler.” Carrie Coon plays her colleague Jean Cole, who worked with McLaughlin on the investigation. Together, they go up against institutional sexism and police incompetence and put themselves...
In “Boston Strangler,” the Jake Gyllenhaal reporter role is played by Keira Knightley. The two-time Oscar nominee is doing a rare American accent as Loretta McLaughlin, the Boston Record-American journalist who broke the story and coined the term “Boston Strangler.” Carrie Coon plays her colleague Jean Cole, who worked with McLaughlin on the investigation. Together, they go up against institutional sexism and police incompetence and put themselves...
- 2/21/2023
- by Liam Mathews
- Gold Derby
The true story of the Boston Strangler will come to the screen in an upcoming feature being produced by Ridley Scott for 20th Century Studios, with Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon starring. It’s coming to Hulu on March 17, and the trailer just debuted today.
Matt Ruskin (“Crown Heights”) wrote and directed the serial killer thriller, which also stars David Dastmalchian (The Suicide Squad, Dune), Chris Cooper, and Alessandro Nivola.
The film follows Loretta McLaughlin (Knightley), a reporter for the Record-American newspaper, who becomes the first journalist to connect the Boston Strangler murders.
As the mysterious killer claims more and more victims, Loretta attempts to continue her investigation alongside colleague and confidante Jean Cole (Carrie Coon), yet the duo finds themselves stymied by the rampant sexism of the era.
Nevertheless, McLaughlin and Cole bravely pursue the story at great personal risk, putting their own lives on the line in...
Matt Ruskin (“Crown Heights”) wrote and directed the serial killer thriller, which also stars David Dastmalchian (The Suicide Squad, Dune), Chris Cooper, and Alessandro Nivola.
The film follows Loretta McLaughlin (Knightley), a reporter for the Record-American newspaper, who becomes the first journalist to connect the Boston Strangler murders.
As the mysterious killer claims more and more victims, Loretta attempts to continue her investigation alongside colleague and confidante Jean Cole (Carrie Coon), yet the duo finds themselves stymied by the rampant sexism of the era.
Nevertheless, McLaughlin and Cole bravely pursue the story at great personal risk, putting their own lives on the line in...
- 2/21/2023
- by John Squires
- bloody-disgusting.com
A few of The Rolling Stones‘ songs managed to become famous without even being singles in the United States or the United Kingdom. Some of the tracks on this list are well-known for their amazing songwriting. On the other hand, others are well-known because they’re so infamous.
The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger | Evening Standard / Stringer 5. ‘Gimme Shelter’
“Gimme Shelter” might be one of the most famous album tracks of all time. It’s one of The Rolling Stones’ songs that captures the chaos, confusion, and hope of the late 1960s. If The Rolling Stones had never recorded another song besides “Gimme Shelter,” they’d still have a place in rock ‘n’ roll history.
The track served as the opening of The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed. Notably, none of the songs from that album became singles in the United States or the United Kingdom.
4. ‘Under My Thumb’
“Under My Thumb” has a great beat.
The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger | Evening Standard / Stringer 5. ‘Gimme Shelter’
“Gimme Shelter” might be one of the most famous album tracks of all time. It’s one of The Rolling Stones’ songs that captures the chaos, confusion, and hope of the late 1960s. If The Rolling Stones had never recorded another song besides “Gimme Shelter,” they’d still have a place in rock ‘n’ roll history.
The track served as the opening of The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed. Notably, none of the songs from that album became singles in the United States or the United Kingdom.
4. ‘Under My Thumb’
“Under My Thumb” has a great beat.
- 2/15/2023
- by Matthew Trzcinski
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
When it comes to the mysterious and disturbing subject of what goes on in the minds of serial killers, popular culture has consistently been ahead of the curve. The idea of the split personality goes way back — to “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and to a character like Norman Bates, who carried the identity of his mother around inside him. When the Hollywood drama “The Boston Strangler” came out in 1968, the case it was based on — that of Albert DeSalvo, who confessed to the murders of 13 women from 1962 to 1964 — became enshrined in the popular imagination, and what was haunting about the film was its portrait of DeSalvo as a compartmentalized personality: the killer who blotted out his “normal” self, the normal self who blotted out the killer. The flamboyant serial killers in “The Silence of the Lambs” and its even greater prequel, “Manhunter,” both based on novels by Thomas Harris,...
- 9/12/2020
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
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