User reviews

The coverage was great and the events reconstructed in depth but I feel it wasn't as shocking as it should've been. I've watched the episodes about Ted Bundy from the same creators and I remember feeling disgusted and upset about the way he killed and tortured his victims. Now, I know there are certain things you can't say on tv but in a 3 hours documentary not once it was mentioned (they never dared to even say the word) what he did to his victims before he killed them. There were really slight allusions to tortures in the last minutes but overall it made it seem like he "just" killed his underage victims and it's just not acceptable that a documentary about a "man" like Gacy tries to sugarcoat his crimes. I'm not saying it should've contained gory descriptions and details to the point it becomes morbid and in no way I am one of those sickos who like hearing about stuff like that, but to me these documentaries should be about raising awareness and turning the general public's interest away from this type of individuals; they're doing the opposite, and if Netflix wants to turn serial killers into easily digestible mass-consumable entertainment it should stick to its shows about imaginary ones.

I'm extremely tired of Netflix documentaries being edited like thriller movies, while basically leaving out just how horrible the actions and consequences of the scumbags committing them are. More focus on the mythic characters of the killers than anything else. Not much about the true sickening impact it has had on people.

This was a good exception. Great interviews with people involved, well edited (even the time jumping), probably as detailed as it can get in this format, and a lot of focus on the victims. Gacy is not painted as the mythic clown (pun intended) people see him as, he is just documented as the peace of garbage that he was. This is probably the best John Wayne Gacy documentary i've seen. Well done!

This is one of those sick stories based on real events that really make you feel for the victims. John Wayne Gacy is probably the sickest serial killer in the history of all serial killers.

Good docuseries that gives you all the information about the killings and the victims (and survivors for that matter) without the series being dragged out. The three episodes were nicely done.

Joe Berlinger's back with yet another serial killer documentary, this time centered around the ruthless John Wayne Gacy. I was afraid he'd waste time focusing on Gacy being a "killer clown" when, in fact, he wasn't - he simply was evil personified! The manner in which he elaborates how he treated his victims and the horrifying aura of feeling powerful from doing such acts is something that's really tough to digest as a viewer. The second episode considerably slows things down, with too many back-and-forth jumps in timelines. However, the third and final episode wraps things up nicely, and seeing the victims' pictures will make any viewer feel a lump in their throat. This is especially the case when you hear Gacy's voiceover proclaiming that society can kill him only once when he's killed 33 times, followed by laughter that sends chills down your spine.

In the annals of US serial killer history, there have been numerous more prolific, depraved or callous perpetrators than John Wayne Gacy.

Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway, Albert Fish and Richard Ramirez are names that spring to mind.

But I somehow found Gacy's story to be the most sickening. This monster had absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever and didn't appear to be the product of his upbringing or environment. He was a hateful and sadistic sexual deviant by design.

His heartlessness and utter contempt for human life was seriously difficult to comprehend. He was completely hellbent on indulging in his perverted tendencies and disposed of human bodies like they were bags of waste.

Listening to the arrogant, conceited and self-indulgent pig's recordings really got on my nerves. Not even the slightest hint of regret or remorse in him. Quite the opposite in fact, he was actually proud of his hideous life's work and revelled in his infamy, celebrity status, the attention he attracted from Police and the pain and suffering he caused his victims and their families.

When he said that because he had paid for the sexual services of many of his victims he was entitled to do whatever he liked to them, like something you buy from a shop, it became crystal clear that these deaths were not merely the outcome of sexual misadventure.

His insanity plea was a blatant ploy to save his own neck. I believe that most people have some form of mental illness, emotional weakness or inner demons to face, but only the most extreme cases can be used in defence of multiple murders. The question is whether those disorders, however severe, prevent a person from exercising self-control.

Gacy's debauched series of crimes were clearly the actions of an extremely cold-hearted and calculating individual, with a carefully premeditated strategy. I don't feel that he was ever impulsive or out of control - he made a succession of conscious decisions, based on sinister fantasies that he went on to realise time and time again. He was a control freak who got off on owning and degrading his victims.

He might be the most repulsive human being I've ever come across. A lethal injection was a wholly inadequate and relatively painless end, in stark contrast to his casualties. The rotter deserved to suffer total misery and solitude for the rest of his sorry existence. He got off pretty damn lightly in my opinion.

This documentary was extremely difficult to digest and made me feel somewhat uneasy. God only knows what the poor souls who had to unearth all the corpses from Gacy's crawlspace went through.

I also felt that compared with the superbly-made Netflix series 'Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes' it was a little repetitive, lacked explanation and coherence in places, contained some very strange and irrelevant imagery between segments and didn't fully examine important aspects of Gacy's crimes.

That was partly down to the insignificance with which law enforcement treated many of the disappearances, due to the status and vagrant nature of the victims. There were plenty of opportunities to put Gacy behind bars for a long, long time way before his eventual arrest.

There was such a strong homophobia embedded into US society at this point in time that sex crimes committed against males were not taken seriously. The stigma of homosexuality was so negative that many of Gacy's victims were outcasts who had been disowned by their families and living on the fringes of society, which he preyed upon and took advantage of.

It was as though the lives of these young men didn't really matter to anybody.

I think that was what I disliked most about this documentary - the fact that it was a continuation of Gacy's twisted, nightmarish legacy and perpetuating his wicked life for future generations to experience, but with a tragic lack of information on the majority of his victims.

He really should be erased from existence rather than documented or sensationalised. Since notoriety was something he craved it would be the most appropriate course of action.

This is a good series and this is a good addition to it. My one criticism of this look at the crimes of John Wayne Gacey is that it doesn't need to be three episodes. The show uses current day interviews and audio tapes of the interviews with the killer to tell his story. JWG is one of the most vile and disgusting serial killers of the modern era and he was "hiding in plain site". It is always amazing how when you watch these stories you can't help but feel sad that if people had put the pieces of the puzzle together just a little earlier how many people would have been saved. If you like true crime this is very good.

I'm a true crime junkie and of course have seen most documentaries on Gacy. This one though, I hadn't heard any of these audio clips before and it really shows the evil of the man. In most footage and interviews Gacy had a mask on. These tapes are something else though. There is one point in episode three where he laughs and if it doesn't send a chill up your spine, nothing will. Probably the best Netflix documentary series I've watched so far.

Great coverage of a horrible man who had done horrible things to innocent boys. Super sad that this could have been prevented if it wasn't for the fact that the police were too slow on the missing boys Emotional ending.

This documentary by Netflix, Conversations of a Serial Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes, is a lot like the one centering on Ted Bundy because serial killers, despite their deadly murders and morbid, gothic mystique, don't sound like, say, Hannibal Lecter when they're interviewed, but more like a used car salesman or even a game show host...

Which is what Gacy and Bundy both come across as, and they're two different but extremely similar serial killers as in, one murdered pretty young girls, the other handsome young boys, and both endlessly deny they had anything to do with the murders...

There's simply nothing intriguing about a serial killer lying... It's boring... It's uninteresting... And worst of all, it's predictable...

For example: OJ Simpson, after the jury freed him because of a racist cop, tried promoting a video tape in which he supposedly explains himself: but the public knew it was just OJ lying, and almost nobody bought it...

Herein, the best thing about this particular Gacy documentary is the more typical true-crime-doc elements that surround the titular recordings of Gacy lying his fat head off...

Or when he does tell the truth, it's always that his victim's were aggressive and he was defending himself (meanwhile the lesbian interviewee, who had no connection with Gacy, talking about how young gays were victims wasn't necessary, and was just Netflix political posturing, because Gacy was bisexual himself, and preferred young gay men as victims for that reason... he was attracted to them)...

So that sporadic aspect... his own voice recorded after his arrest... is the dullest thing going despite being what's supposed to grab the viewer into watching and, perhaps it does... but it's not what will keep him/her interested.

Some people say Gacy was racist because he only killed white guys.

I wasn't going to watch this, due to the horrific subject matter and the fact so much has already been done about the waste of space known as John Wayne Gacy.

It was pretty informative. There are interviews with people who knew him personally.

It reminds us that if you were a runaway back then, you were basically forgotten.

Lacks new insight. Instead dwells on the traumatic details for little seemingly no other reason than to shock. Squanders opportunities to examine the psychology presented by the never-before-heard recordings. Overall, this was pointless at best, exploitative at worst.

What is there to say? Humanity can be wonderful and generous just as easily as it can be disgusting and vile. It horrible to think that people like this like among us in the world... All in all, this is your typical serial killer documentary. Nothing out of the ordinary in terms of cinematography or sound design, everything was well done and provacative.

If ur looking to hear about Gacys murders in detail u won't. There is 60 hours worth of tape and they let us listen to about an hour of it. And it was nothing that good. I watched this on netflix and it was well disappointing. I had just watched the Dahmer one and the tiniest part of it where they showed Gacy was loads better than this entire documentary and that was like 5 minutes in one episode.

The show is really about the cops who caught him and the lawyers that defended him.

Gacy apparently told this lawyer about every murder in detail on these tapes. If I remember correctly we heard about only two. I learnt more about him from Wikipedia than I did from watching this. I don't even remember them talking about the clown costumes.

The only thing I really learned from watching this and reading wiki is that if I was to wake up handcuffed and naked I'd rather it be in Dahmers basement than in Gacys.

So a closeted gay guy butchers 30 boys but the lesbian (who is not connected to the story in any way) determines gay guys a the victims? Ridiculous! Another gay serial killer preying on straight boys more like it.

The series on its own is decent, 7/10. What I found missing from the series is an exploration of why John Wayne Gacy did what he did, what he felt about and during his destructive actions, and what he did to his victims other than murder them. The series felt incomplete.

This series deserves a one point deduction for misrepresenting what it is about, so it gets a 6/10 from me. The series appears to focus on the murderer confessing about his crimes: what he did, why he did it and what he felt. In actuallity, the series focuses more on the events around his arrest and trial, and what the people involed with those events thought and felt.

To give you an impression of my taste, these are some series I have rated highly in the past: 'Cyberpunk: Edgerunners', 'The Sandman', 'Violet Evergarden', 'Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song ', 'Great Pretender', 'Messiah', 'The OA', 'Sense8', 'Beastars', 'Dark', and the movies 'Interstellar' and 'Arrival'.

A concise and well put together documentary on John Gacy, focusing on the investigators and putting a positive highlight on the victims. The interviews were relevant and good use of archival footage.

With most drama shows or even documentaries on Netflix, they can be rather hit or miss, but generally one thing that a viewer can always bank on is that Netflix delivers the goods with regards to documentaries concerning serial killers. The reason is perhaps society's morbid fascination behind the minds of the worst killers of the past century. The John Wayne Gacy tapes were fascinating to watch, I never heard of this case before watching this documentary. Perhaps due to the fact of my age as I was only a baby when he finally was executed much less caught earlier in the late 70s.

The documentary is spanned over 3 episodes, the first looks into the victim that opened then case and also into John Gacy's background as a young man, all very informative and you think of this killer as a person, not one you are empathetic towards but perhaps understanding towards how his sociopathy came to be. One thing of note. I have to say and perhaps the documentary could have been a little stronger at pointing out. Across the United States, sodomy was a criminal offence as was buggery. So homosexuality was unfortunately looked upon very negatively by many people in the United States. Which of course has much changed since. The second episode focuses on the case and the building of it. The third episode looks at conclusion of the case, the trial, the execution. Spread throughout the 3 part documentary you have interviews with people from all angles of the case. People who were almost victims, relatives of victims. The cops, prosecuters, defence attorny and indeed John Gacy via tapes from beyond the grave

Eventually in the modern era with the advancement of DNA technology, bodies that just had numbers attached to their names were identified years after being buried. All in all, one of the beat serial killer documentaries out there. You'll not be disappointed if you enjoy watching them.

A series examining the harrowing case of John Wayne Gacy, a serial killer, who targeted young men.

This rates as one of the best documentary series I've seen to date on Netflix, very well made, intriguing and pretty factual.

If you are easily upset, I'd say you could well be upset by some of the content, it doesn't hold back at all, it provides some pretty explicit information about Gacy's crimes, some of the accounts are heart breaking to say the least.

I thought the second episode was the most intriguing part, it had me enthralled.

The tapes are shocking, what you hear may just give you an idea of what the man was about, treating his victims like dirt on his shoe.

Pogo The Clown has to be one of the creepiest things I've seen, the guy not only was a monster, he visually created one too.

9/10.

I thought it was a good documentary visually it was well presented but I wanted more detail, it seem like the doc was the sparksnotes version of the case.

Conversations With a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes This chilling web series takes a deep dive into the life of part time clown and serial killer John Garcy who went on a torture, rape & murder spree of around 33 young men in the 1970's before he was finally captured and put to death by lethal injection.

The series is highly engaging as it switches flawlessly between testimonies given by investigators and the interrogation tapes of John Gacy himself.

This 3 part miniseries is focussed and highly recommended. 3.5/5 from me.. 🙂

Another well-done documentary about another American serial killer. I watched the Ted Bundy documentary before, which was also well done, and the thing they both have in common is how awful the police investigations were. I get it that they didn't have the same resources at that time but seriously how bad do you have to be to let one guy dictate horror like that before you catch him. Gacy is another narcissistic personality that has no empathy whatsoever. The fact that no-one saw this during all those years says enough about how narrow minded people were in those years. The documentary basically shows what kind of person Gacy was, how he managed to fool everybody. Is it not unbelievable that a sick person like that manages to get his picture taken with the presidents wife? How did the American police forces evolved from being completely out of the loop to the trigger happy racist forces they are now? Only in America, that's what I had to think about when I watched this mini-series. I don't say it never happens somewhere else in the world but let's face it America has the most serial killers, has the most people in prison, has the most mass shootings, has the most killer cops... I don't think it's something to be proud of. That said, this documentary is certainly worth watching if you like this subject.

I'm halfway through the second episode and nothing has happened yet. Just vague references to people disappearing and long, boring interviews with what seems to be hundreds of fat old cops and prosecutors and lawyers, alluding to things but explicitly saying nothing.

I'm starting to think this guy didn't do anything reprehensible.