Capturing the Killer Nurse (2022) User Reviews

Okay documentary, but left out a lot

[Snootz · 6/10 · 26 December 2022]

It's difficult to tell just how accurate this documentary is. I take it that it's pretty accurate, since the original people were involved and most did not try to hide their shame at being unwittingly involved with this man's murders.

What's missing though is more in-depth information about his childhood, his psychological motivations, or other things that makes criminal pathology a fascinating field. His motivation is so meagerly discussed it's almost non-existent. Anyone trying to get into the mind of the killer will be disappointed here.

What I am most shocked at is that criminal investigations were not brought against the hospitals and administrators that suspected (ie knew) this was going on and just passed him on to other hospitals. They would seem as responsible for those deaths as the murderer, yet not a one of them has been brought to trail? That is so unthinkable that it galls.

All in all a reasonable documentary, but it leaves quite a bit out that would have made the rather slow-moving commentary more interesting and informative. We know the story, but little about the "why" (other than the killer was seriously warped, of course). The fact that his murders were at times random was an indication there was far more going on here than basic mercy killings. The documentary would have done well to delve deeper into the psychology and motivation of that part of this story.

America's most prolific serial killer

[RedKidBytes · 7/10 · 12 November 2022]

Netflix, shortly after releasing "the Good Nurse", featuring Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain, put forth a documentary about the same events. The documentary follows Charles Cullen, an ICU nurse, who jumps hospitals every time he gets into trouble and finds most of his work in intensive care units, which handle patients with severe or life-threatening illnesses or injuries.

Cullen is mostly described by his coworkers as smart but corky, and a bit weird however overall a good nurse. He has a certain panacea for pharmaceuticals particularly remembering the name use of the medicines even for the rare ones.

After graduating with a nursing degree in 1986, Cullen started working for St Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston. He went on a killing spree from 1986 until his arrest in December 2003. He repeatedly claimed that he wanted to end patients' lives to end their suffering, nonetheless, he killed patients who were getting better and sometimes as young as 21 years old.

Over the years he confessed to killing 40 people. Although when considering the time frame of roughly about 16 years of nursing and the relative ease of killing his patients, he is assumed to kill more than 400 people.

Interesting story. Awful editing and direction

[doriangray-34752 · 5/10 · 13 July 2023]

The story is interesting. And it is imperative that people understand that we now have another "blue wall of silence" covering up corruption and illegal behavior by the institutions. We had the police blue wall of silence and now we have the medical one too. As it is true in the US as it is definitely true in the UK and that leads me to believe it is EVERYWHERE.

That being said this 1:30h documentary could've been done in 45min. I mean keeping all the info mentioned which some reviewers even complained the info wasn't enough. But this thing is soooooo slow, with several intervals of repetitive music, several empty scenes, and how they move the picture on a drawn timeline while slowing down on every date so u can read it and keeps going back 20 years. Every single time the timeline is shown it's done in the same manner. Going over every date of employment u think ok they're talking about this era. Nope keep waiting.

Even limited series documentaries aren't that slow. The only documentary I watched that was worse than this was the Dennis nilsen one where the whole thing is the view of a tape recorder and narration. Not even background scenes or photos or maps or anything. Extremely lazy. Like watching paint dry. Literally.

These directors and editors need to understand that stretching scenes to get the docu to last longer than hour is easily noticeable by the viewer and it puts ppl off and lowers the rating. But I think all that happens after they all get paid so who cares right? Smh.

Putting the record straight

[radhrh · 6/10 · 6 December 2022]

After watching the tedious, The Good Nurse I was sufficiently interested in learning more about the case and specifically the muderer's motives. Unfortunately we don't learn very much more about this, Cullen makes a weak case that his murder streak was somehow mercy killings then goes onto say his killing was some kind of compulsion he had no power to resist. I believe the later not the former. However this documentary sets the record straight about several issues not dealt with or inaccurately shown in the dramatic version. Notably the body exhumed for a post mortem examination was of an elderly male priest not a young woman with a 6 month old baby girl. However although superior to the dramatic version I found author Charles Graeber's repeated assertion that Cullen's actions were facilitated by a "for profit private health care system" quite annoying. Obviously he has a political axe to grind here but I can inform Mr. Graeber that at least 3 similar cases of nurses and one case of a doctor killing patients have been found in UK which has a socialized healthcare system. Given the UK's population is only 20% of the USA I'd say patients are far safer in a private healthcare system than a socialized one and that's without talking about the far better health outcomes patients in USA enjoy over their far less fortunate cousins in UK.

A Not-Quite Killer Review of 'Capturing the Killer Nurse'

[natmavila · 7/10 · 29 March 2024]

"Capturing the Killer Nurse" is the kind of documentary you watch with a bucket of popcorn, only to realize halfway through that maybe popcorn wasn't the right choice for a film about a nurse who's less about the TLC and more about the R. I. P. It's an okay watch-think of it as a true crime podcast but with visuals, so you no longer have to imagine what everyone looks like. The documentary does a commendable job of laying out the timeline and facts, like a Wikipedia article with a budget for dramatic reenactments and suspenseful music scores.

However, the film struggles to find its unique voice in the crowded room of true crime documentaries. It's like going to a costume party and finding out three other people wore the same "Killer Nurse" outfit. You appreciate the effort, but wish there was a bit more originality in the presentation. The interviews, reconstructions, and archival footage are all well and good, but they never quite elevate the material beyond the expected tropes. It's akin to a chef meticulously recreating a classic dish but forgetting that secret ingredient that makes you say, "Wow, I need the recipe!"

In the end, "Capturing the Killer Nurse" earns a solid 3.5 stars. It's the documentary equivalent of a B-minus student: reliable, does what's expected, but won't particularly astonish you with new insights or methods. You'll walk away informed, perhaps a little entertained, but unlikely to rush to your friends to discuss it. It's the perfect background noise for folding laundry or scrolling through your phone-capable of capturing your attention in brief spurts, but not guilty of stealing your entire evening.

Nursing you to death

[kosmasp · 7/10 · 3 March 2023]

No pun intended - I have a lot of respect for certain jobs. When it comes to the medical area ... well I couldn't imagine myself doing what some people are doing. I really respect that and everything they do. There are exceptions and you can only hope you never encounter one of those. You only meet them once would be one thing to keep in mind - also no pun intended.

The fictional movie they did about this is quite good. So I knew the main points of the "story" and what had happened. Of course reality was not as "exciting" in certain areas as the movie depicted it to be. That being said, it does not need to be. But if you only watch one of the two movies, I suggest you watch the other one ... no offense.

A thought provoking watch.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 15 November 2022]

I watched this having watched the film in which Eddie Redmayne started as Charles Cullen.

I'm glad I did it this way round, so many things I found hard to believe in the film, were actually true, the film wasn't sensationalised, it seemed to stick quite rigidly to the content.

What a documentary should be, thought provoking, dramatic, revealing, and a little bit shocking, some parts of it were actually hard to fathom, that is one messed up system.

Amy Loughren's thoughts were astonishing the whole way through, once again, I'm speechless at how rotten the establishment was, how many lives could have been saved.

One thing the film didn't really get into was Cullen's motivation, you will actually hear that in his own words here, the interview sequences were astonishing I thought. What a curious guy, I'd like to see more on him, to try and understand him a little better, he's impossible to piece together.

8/10.

Ugh. SSSSLLLLLLOOOOOOWWWWW

[magindville · 3/10 · 25 November 2022]

Holy smokes man. Slower than molasses. The lady who the doc features most is a nurse who worked with the killer and helped the cops catch him. She speaks in an annoyingly slow, over-deliberate, monotone way that just ruins this whole documentary making it Painful to sit through. Felt like a 4 hour movie.

Easily could have been done in 30 minutes but, like a lot of shows on Netflix, its way too long and seems even longer by the pace, tone, and atmosphere of the documentary that I assume was trying to be tense, serious, and dramatic but it was done in such a "trying too hard" kind of way. Skip it.

too much focus on the sympathy for the killer

[mdcollinsbarracuda · 5/10 · 17 November 2022]

An interesting documentary, however there is far too much focus on how this main nurse who ended up helping capture this killer felt so sorry for him and kept saying what a great nurse this he was. Like she couldn't stop long enough to look at reality instead of bouncing back to what she thought was reality. She even has the nerve to put the responsibility on her 11-year-old daughter of whether or not she should help the investigation! Not a bad watch though, put together well by Netflix. What does strike me though, if I may say so, is that we never hear anything bad about hospitals even though they allowed this person, and others not really unlike him - this is not the first such story -- yet the Catholic Church is practically known for harboring the few pedophiles that eventually came to light. How ironic that people are so willing to vilify the church but not the hospital yet this crime was exceedingly worse than what the church did. Just food for thought.

Killer system

[edwin-wks · 8/10 · 13 November 2022]

The killer nurse, Cullen, like Dr. Death, Duntsch, was enabled by a medical system more concerned with profit than upholding morality. Just as Duntsch did, Cullen was passed down from one hospital to another like a sexually transmitted disease to continue his appetite for killing patients. The two murderers were apprehended and convicted ten years apart, so it is apparent that the medical system did not learn their lesson.

The documentary could have delved more into Cullen's early life. Tape recordings of the man himself described a boy who was petrified by the loss of safety resulting from the death of his mother, his only protector. No clue was given as to what or whom he feared. But this terror became the seed out of which grew a sociopathic killer.

Cullen claimed that he could not bear witnessing the suffering of the patients and therefore killed them out of mercy. Yet these patients were on the mend and not terminally ill when he brought forward their demise. It was never about the patients and everything to do with his own inner anguish. He projected his suffering onto them and symbolically vanquished it by ending their lives.

Better than "The Good Nurse"

[jgreco7 · 8/10 · 12 November 2022]

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but in the case of this documentary, it's an improvement. Serial killers have been a compelling subject for dramatization since Hitchcock's "Psycho," at least in American popular culture. But the fascination dates back to Jack the Ripper, and even farther back to the Middle Ages. This year it's Netflix's recent portrayal of the "good nurse" killer, a dismal excuse for biographical adaptation. It might have been worthwhile if it had offered new insight into horrible events, portrayed compelling emotions, or delved into human nature. The result could have been interesting, even entertaining, like a thriller. This documentary accomplishes all of this with no convoluted plot and contrived performances. The actual killer, Charles Cullen, is a far more chilling and impenetrable human being than the one portrayed by Eddie Redmayne. Cullen's matter-of-fact delivery as he explains the motivations that lead him to kill patients and his almost childlike self-possession are unnerving. Redmayne is a good actor, but his choice of intonation and nearly comatose performance failed to capture these real qualities. With straight-forward story telling and genuine emotion, this film imparts unimaginable horrors all the more frightening because they are so credible.

Well Done

[billcr12 · 8/10 · 13 November 2022]

I read the Good Nurse five years ago and I consider it one of the best true crime books that I have ever read, and I have read well over three hundred of them.

Charles Cullen is the good nurse in question here. The lunatic worked at several hospitals and a nursing home, leaving a trail of death behind.

Finally, after fifteen years and a number of untimely and suspicious deaths, one courageous nurse voiced her feelings to a pair of tenacious detectives.

A Catholic priest was one of Chuckie's murder victims and after being exhumed, the good reverend had a high level of the heart medication Digoxin in his body.

The recordings of Cullen are riveting and I only wish that more of them had been used in the film.

I highly recommend both the book and the film.

if you have...

[ops-52535 · 9/10 · 11 November 2022]

Just watched the dramatized version of this true story called ''the good nurse'' , the story about killer-cullen, the male nurse that couldnt narrow himself to mercykillings at the bedside in hospital icu's, well here is the complete story in form of a documentary, well made and well excecuted.

What made this man do these actions will be scrutinized for ever, and i cant find anywhere in the material that his actions where done to gain materiel wealth come out of it, which has been a pattern in other killer doctors and killer nurses incident in the past century...

definately a loose screw, but still an ethical dillema that health care personel often faces, was it the one dose per doctor prescribed of 5 mg of subcutaneous morphine that pushed him/her over the line???

So working in the health care is really a matter of life and death, and where transparacy and documentation is alpha and omega in servicing and protecting the patients. The grumpy old man liked this far more than the dramaflick issued in late october.