Hollywood Should Leave True Crime Alone

I have seen several films that involve true crime, and while some of them were handled with extreme care when it came to the subject matter, it still makes me uncomfortable. I think it has to do with the thought that there are some people out there in the world of Hollywood that don't give a shit about people's feelings when it comes to true crime.

One of the biggest examples that really pisses me off is Ryan Murphy. Even though some of the seasons were pretty bad, (first four seasons were the best) American Horror Story was a great horror series. And yes, some seasons did depict real killers, but I think his depiction in his current Monster series is downright insane.

He disrespects the victims families constantly, and does his own sick depiction of his vision of these monsters. I was not surprised to see that people on social media were saying messed up stuff about how hot the killers were. Yes, people were actually praising real killers. It's sick and disturbing, and those people honestly scare me.

It bothers me that people like Ryan Murphy are spreading this kind of attention to real killers. All of these bastards don't deserve a shred of any sort of spotlight.

Another asshole who decided to profit off real victims and killers was Daniel Farrands. His most recent film I had heard about was Ted Bundy, American Boogeyman, released in 2021. I watched a review about the film, and I was so disgusted, this director doesn’t give a shit. He literally portrayed Ted Bendy as some sort of master/genius villain, even going as far to depict fan fiction interactions with his victims.

That is creepy, disrespectful, and messed up on so many levels. The worst part is that he made more films based on Sharon Tate, Nicole Brown Simpson…actual murders that took place in real life. Daniel went as far to even say that he made the Sharon Tate film in honor of the victims. How is that honorable? It’s horrible for him to even say something like that, I couldn’t imagine how the victims’ families felt about this film’s release.

Literally the very last True Crime movie I had watched years ago was Zac Efron’s portrayal of Ted Bundy; Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. The film did not glorify Ted at all, in my personal opinion, it is one of the few films that portrayed Bundy as a total monster.

Unfortunately, I immediately knew that casting Zac Efron was a terrible mistake. This actor is loved by many fans, but I felt that fans would feel confused with how to feel about Efron in this particular film. Opinions definitely varied when it was first released on Netflix. People stated that it’s best to forget the name of this horrible monster, and others felt very uncomfortable with watching this film.

Several of the victims’ and their families were also upset with the film’s release, and I felt so sorry for them. Hollywood likes to search for any cash grab, even if it angers people who went through real life trauma.

A good example of this insanity is Joe Goldberg from the TV Show; You. Joe’s character is a fictional serial killer who kills anyone who would dare get in the way of his new love interest…and will kill his lover if she doesn’t choose to be with him. Fans literally defended this character’s actions; a damn serial killer! Penn Badley, the actor who plays the eccentric killer, literally told his fans to stop obsessing over his character. He even had his own opinions about the Dahmer show, saying that fans who think killers are cute is weird, and he also blamed Netflix for that mess.

Netflix and Ryan Murphy honestly both suck for agreeing to this.

Also, kudos to that actor for speaking out to the world about something important like this. It definitely needed to be addressed.

Hollywood needs to stop focusing on True Crime as a whole. If they want to create original stories with killers, they better be fictional. Make a film like Gone Girl, or No Country for Old Men, instead of being lazy, and choosing to create movies based on real events with real victims. The killers need to be forgotten for good and erased from the face of the planet.

Hollywood needs to remember that.

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Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn