Coming a year after the documentary mini-series "John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise," director Joe Berlinger and his "Conversations with a Killer" series looks at the life and capture of John Wayne Gacy, and suffers from over-familiarity if you are a true crime documentary viewer.
Starting with taped conversations made between Gacy and a member of his legal team, this mini-series concentrates on the search for Gacy's last victim, Robert Piest, while jumping back in time to cover his life and previous run-ins with the law. Both sides of the trial proceedings are interviewed, as are some of Gacy's associates and victims' relatives.
Gacy was a monster, and his crime spree still affects thousands of people to this very day. The victims' stories should be told again and again. However, this mini-series covers the same ground as other documentaries, and aside from a few factoids, doesn't offer up anything new. As true crime documentaries gain in popularity, these "Conversations with a Killer" series seem stagnant and sometimes exploitative. It does try to redeem itself with a coda about the victims, but I am still waiting on a documentary solely about the victims, and/or a no-holds-barred dramatization of Gacy's life and crimes. Getting Gacy's children or step-daughters, he was married twice, to talk on camera would also be a major coup.
"Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes" is adequate at covering the serial killer, but I would definitely recommend you seek out "John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise" over this.
Stats:
(2022) 180 min. (6/10)
-Directed by Joe Berlinger
-Featuring Kelly Green, William Kunkle, Robert Motta Sr., John Wayne Gacy, Lawrence Finder, Sam Amirante, Kim Byers-Lund
-Unrated- contains mild physical violence, profanity, nudity, some sexual content, very strong sexual references, very strong adult situations, some drug abuse references, alcohol and tobacco use
