Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer (2021)
Netflix releases a new limited crime documentary series on the hunt for a lesser-known but terrifying and prolific serial killer.
‘There’s nothing more serious than one human being taking the life of another.’
- Detective Frank Salerno, Homicide Bureau, LA County Sheriff
Crime documentary series aren’t in short supply these days. Tiger King, The Ripper, Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, Trial by Media, and Fear City: New York vs the Mafia were released in 2020 alone. And that’s just on Netflix.
These series follow a similar and simple format: a handful of suspenseful episodes that can be easily consumed in one sitting. Episodes end on cliff-hangers, leaving the viewer curious for more, desperate to solve the crime. Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is no exception.
Grainy 1980s VHS footage opens the series. Detective Gil Carrillo begins to speak on behalf of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. LA in the 1980s was a time of excess and saw visits from both the Pope and the Queen. Hollywood glamour existed alongside a seedy underbelly. Carrillo then appears again, this time as an older man in recent times. He is soon joined by Detective Frank Salerno. Both men are the hunters referred to in the title. Their prey is a maniac recking havoc and striking fear into the lives of LA County residents. But this is their story to tell.
Timestamped intertitles punctuate horrific events throughout the series, signifying when a new crime of depraved horror and gruesome murder has occurred. Director Tiller Russell, alongside Segment Director James Carroll, reveals a lot about these crimes, censoring crime scene images with only a small black cross over the victim’s eyes.
Interviews from the victim’s families serve as graphic family impact statements. Their traumatic recollections of the harrowing crimes, add a gripping personal element to the story, juxtaposing the often sterile nature of the serial killer investigation and hunt.
Carrillo and Salerno are positioned well ethically against the media, politicians and even other police departments. At one point, Carrillo and Salerno fairly call out a journalist for extortion, revealing interesting dynamics within the world of criminal investigations. Absorbing testimonies from Carrillo and Salerno steer the audience through these disturbing and horrific murders and other crimes. They are the enthralling pulse of the series.
HBO’s brilliant I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2020) docu-series recently captured the late crime writer Michelle McNamara’s fixation on the Golden State Killer. McNamara likens true-crime writers to suffer from the same affliction as the criminals they study. In the same vein, Carrillo and Salerno note the necessity to think like a serial killer to find one.
Tiller and Carroll employ archival news footage, aerial shots of LA at night, and recreations of the crimes to further establish the creepy prowling nature of the killer, heightened with a Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross-esque brooding and well-paced score.
Night Stalker is a haunting series of a lesser-known serial killer Richard Ramirez and the detectives who hunted him. The experience is chilling, unsettling and intense.
Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is streaming on Netflix.
Whole series screened for review.
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