Stream it or skip it?

Stream it or skip it?

“He didn’t just deceive his family. He deceived his church. He deceived an entire city.” Netflix Real crime documentary My father, the BTK killerdirected and executive produced by Skye Borgman, and based on the 2019 book Daughter of a Serial Killer: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming Written by Kerry Rawson, who details in the doc her years-long struggle to reconcile her upbringing and early life lived in the shadow of a secret mass murderer. The story of BTK is notorious, many parts of which have been told before. But with Rawson’s unwilling, close-up view, My father, the BTK killer It doesn’t stop in Real crime. It becomes the worst crime.

Essence: “I mean, even today, I can talk about it down to the details of what my father did. My father did what we know. But for us to actually believe it, it’s still happening and it’s coming out now.” Kerri Rawson speaks directly to the camera the entire time My father, the BTK killerAs she returns to her hometown of Wichita, Kansas, she visits the street she grew up on — the house was demolished “to prevent people from selling it on eBay, piece by piece” — and still feels the sting of both locals and social media trolls who link her to her father’s terrible crimes. Rawson describes going to Wichita as returning to the world of trauma.

Dennis Rader, Kerry Rawson’s father, killed at least 10 people between 1974 and 1991, bound them and sexually tortured them, all while living in the same community as a husband, father, devoted churchgoer and Boy Scout leader. like My father, the BTK killer Giving space to Rawson’s story, he also charts a timeline of Ryder’s murders, interviews police authorities involved in the investigation, and consults local media figures who covered the crimes. The doc accesses a wealth of archival news footage along the way, and includes a few reenactments. But besides Rawson’s reflections on her experience, what’s most surprising here are recordings of phone calls the killer made to police, screenshots of letters he wrote to local media, and, later, video of interviews he had with cops after his arrest. Ryder never apologized once, and spoke easily of his horrific “projects” in a flat Western accent. Maybe he was describing a camping trip or a hobby in the workroom, just like his father, too.

“My father’s shock blew us away.” Rawson is estranged from her mother, and no one else in her family appears in this documentary. She describes her life in the years following her father’s arrest, and how she tried to push her closeness to his double life somewhere inside, and move forward. But he made her rot there. Rawson takes credit for writing her book, and My father, the BTK killer herself, as her mechanisms for confronting and working through what she experienced. But that doesn’t mean she’s reached a place of peace. The “endless hellshow” that was the 2005 trial of Dennis Rader, where the terrible depths of his sexual sadism were revealed, was terrible. But with each fact of his crimes, along with almost every murder, Rawson is able to insert details from her own life into the narrative. How did she know that the family wagon she drove to high school also carried the bodies of Ryder’s many victims?

 Stream it or skip it?
Image: Netflix

What movies will it remind you of? Director Skye Borgman deserves her own true crime tab on Netflix. In addition My father, the BTK killerThat includes Borgman’s work on the streamer She was kidnapped in plain sight, The girl in the pictureAnd a big spot from earlier this year, UNIDENTIFIED NUMBER: High school catfish.

BTK is also no stranger to the thriving true crime genre. Season 2 of the Netflix docuseries Arrest the killers The arrest of Dennis Rader is detailed from the police perspective, and his crimes are fictionalized Mind hunterIt was the inspiration for at least two different films, Good marriage – She wrote it Stephen KingAnd based on his short novel referred to in My father, the BTK killer -And Killer Clovitchwhere Dylan McDermott He plays a frighteningly moustachioed, similarly obligated, torture-obsessed version of Rader who is hidden from view.

Performance worth watching: The footage here from Rader’s August 2005 sentencing hearing in Kansas, as families and loved ones of his victims read their personal statements directly to him in the courtroom, is truly heartbreaking.

Unforgettable dialogue: Larry Hatteberg, Wichita journalist: “Kerry Rawson got a gig that she didn’t sign up for. Everywhere she goes, when people understand that BTK is her father, she becomes BTK’s daughter. How do you survive that?”

Sex and skin: in My father, the BTK killerthe sexual violence of Dennis Rader’s horrific crimes is described in detail, sometimes by the killer himself. The documentary includes links to resources and support for victims of sexual assault.

 Stream it or skip it?
Image: Netflix

Take us: True crime has become an industry unto itself, as if we’re all in it all the time. If it is not one of the many films and documentary series dedicated to serial killers, gruesome murders or bloody domestic violence, then it is a fictional setting either drawn from or inspired by these stories. But the feeling of the media being adjacent to these things is nothing compared to the Kerry Rawson story. She was created by her father, the secret “Bind Torture Kill”. Raised from it. As she says in the doc, she looks like him too. She can’t get past these facts, her face, no matter what she feels, and even now, Rawson interviews in My father, the BTK killer It feels like they are on the verge of PTSD still shaking. For any of us viewers, we can remain detached from the onslaught of true crime, even as we contribute to its escalation. For Rawson, true crime will forever be a lived experience.

We’ve shown where BTK appears in documentaries and scripted drama. But it’s really crazy how much Dennis Rader fits into the mold of what we’ve seen. In the post-capture clips of “My Father, the BTK Killer”, the cops ask him directly: “Why don’t you say that? Tell us who you are?” Almost word for word, said Detective Jurnee Smollett in the recent Apple TV+ drama smoking asks Taron Egerton’s deadly arson investigator, a man who was also hiding in plain sight. With the courageous participation of Rawson, My father, the BTK killer Probably the most complete documentary covering the secret and murderous double life of Dennis Rader. But we can’t think it’s the last word. Right now, there’s probably someone somewhere developing BTK into another fantasy version. The real crime continues.

Our call: Stream it. It’s a powerful and very personal story that Keri Rawson shares My father, the BTK killer. As with true crime, the documentary is very close to the point of discomfort.

johnny loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a writer based in Chicago. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.

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