As many reviewers here have noted, the events in this film are substantially different from Dennis Rader's BTK crimes. It's poorly acted and just plain gruesome. But I do think I understand what this production was attempting to do.
This film picks up in 2004 when the BTK crimes had become a cold case to the police, who are surprised to start getting letters from BTK again. We enter the deranged mind of Dennis Rader as he sleeps -- and DREAMS -- about the other crimes he has been considering committing, and how it might play out if he were caught. Yes, folks, this whole thing is a BTK dream (but the audience's nightmare). Rader admitted freely that he had been stalking and planning other murders when he was finally arrested in 2005, and several of the women he harasses/kills in this film fit the known details of his intended targets. In reality, a couple of women had restraining orders on him and one even moved away because of his harassment -- and two of the women he stalks in this film are clearly based on them.
At first, while watching this, I didn't understand why they would include so much factual information (actual poetry and drawings) but then depict murders that never happened. But the similarity to his intended future victims is what made me see what they were up to: the cliché old dream sequence technique.
However, even understanding that doesn't redeem this voyeuristic and gratuitously violent film. The lead actor physically resembles Rader in many ways and does his best to appear menacing. The women mostly overact (his wife "Susan" and one of the daughters, for example) or underact (the other daughter).
Wish I had never watched this. Made me feel like I had been dragged through scum and needed to take a shower.
This film picks up in 2004 when the BTK crimes had become a cold case to the police, who are surprised to start getting letters from BTK again. We enter the deranged mind of Dennis Rader as he sleeps -- and DREAMS -- about the other crimes he has been considering committing, and how it might play out if he were caught. Yes, folks, this whole thing is a BTK dream (but the audience's nightmare). Rader admitted freely that he had been stalking and planning other murders when he was finally arrested in 2005, and several of the women he harasses/kills in this film fit the known details of his intended targets. In reality, a couple of women had restraining orders on him and one even moved away because of his harassment -- and two of the women he stalks in this film are clearly based on them.
At first, while watching this, I didn't understand why they would include so much factual information (actual poetry and drawings) but then depict murders that never happened. But the similarity to his intended future victims is what made me see what they were up to: the cliché old dream sequence technique.
However, even understanding that doesn't redeem this voyeuristic and gratuitously violent film. The lead actor physically resembles Rader in many ways and does his best to appear menacing. The women mostly overact (his wife "Susan" and one of the daughters, for example) or underact (the other daughter).
Wish I had never watched this. Made me feel like I had been dragged through scum and needed to take a shower.