CONVERSATIONS WITH A KILLER: THE JOHN WAYNE GACEY TAPES

US, 2022, 183 minutes, Colour.

Directed by Joe Berlinger.

Producer and director, Joe Berlinger, has been working, principally on television, since 1983. His focus in the majority of his programs has been on true crime in the United States. He produced and directed the Paradise Lost series investigating the child murders in West Memphis, Arkansas. In 2019 he directed a feature film about serial killer, Ted Bundy, with Zac Efron in the title role, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. At the same time, he directed a television series, Conversations with a Killer, The TED Bundy Tapes, drawing on historical conversations taped with Bundy, including by Bellinger, much of which had previously not been made public.

Now he has done the same with serial killer, John Wayne Gacey. Gacey had already been the subject of a feature film in the 1990s, To Catch a Killer with Brian Dennehy in the central role. William Forsyth portrayed Gacey in the film about his correspondence with the victim who survived, Jason Moss, Dear Mr Gacey.

This documentary is in three parts, each in our long. In the first part, the audience learns the background of Gacy himself, family background, his marriage and child, his work at KFC, the gradual revelations about his interactions with the young men, his being arrested for assault and sentenced to jail. After release, he moved north, had a house in suburban Chicago, married again. There are some testimony in the first part from people he assaulted back in the 1960s.

The second part of the documentary has horrific moments as Gacy’s nature and behaviour are revealed. He could be ingratiating, often acting as a clown entertaining children, working for the Democratic Party, setting up his own building and repair company, always employing young men. There are testimonies from the families of some of his victims.

With suspicions, especially from a survivor, the police begin to take an interest in 1979 in Gacy himself, eventually getting permits to search his house, eventually discovering so many bodies of victims buried under the house.

As with the first part with interviews from victims, the second part focuses mainly on interviews with the police who are involved in the investigation and the arrest, photos of them at the time, some crime scene photographs and video of the time, but the men interviewed 40 years later, older, reflecting on their experiences and recalling what happened at the time. There is also interview footage with his young defence lawyer, Sam Amirante, his amazement at what Gacy can buy confided to him, the toll that it took on him, his work with his associate in defending Gacy in court and the loss of his case.

The third part focuses on the arrest, listening to Gacy himself from the tapes, his arrogance, manipulation, denials, a seeming wanting to confess in many ways. Then there is the trial and the build up then to his execution.

This is video and audio documentation on a monster, depraved behaviour, sadomasochism, sexual deviance, brutal murders. At times it is difficult watching. But a reality check on this kind of monstrous behaviour.

(Netflix released at the same time, a documentary on the British entertainer, Jimmy Savile, and his being unmasked eventually as the decades-long predator. It is very clear from the Jimmy Savile documentary, Savile created a media persona, living up to it, developing it, association with the rich and famous, but revealing very little of his underlying personality and monstrous behaviour. From the Gacy interview tapes, we hear Gacy himself creating a similar kind of persona which people responded to favourably, until this persona-mask was taken away and the truth revealed.)