‘Damaged People’ and the Inescapability of Intergenerational Trauma
Joe McGinniss, Jr.’s memoir, Damaged People takes on intergenerational trauma, familial curses, and true crime’s tenacious hold on art.
true crime
Murderland’s Toxic Environment of Serial Killers
Did our toxic environment affect a generation of serial killers? Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Fraser leads a creepy and complicated examination.
The “Who” in ‘Who Killed Vincent Chin?’ Is a Suggestive Misdirect
The piercing documentary ‘Who Killed Vincent Chin?’, airing on PBS on 20 June, shows how economic anxiety and racial demagoguery make a toxic brew.
‘Finding Yingying’ Raises the Bar on True Crime Films
First-time director Jiayan "Jenny" Shi highlights the reverberating effects of trauma with breathtaking tact in Finding Yingying.
‘The Other Side of Madness’ Is the Most Obscure Charles Manson Film
If truth is stranger than fiction then the truth about some films, such as the Charles Manson film The Other Side of Madness, feels as strange as reality ever gets.
‘Yours, Jean’ Is a Perfect Mixture of Tragedy, Repressed Desire, and Poor Impulse Control
Lee Martin's Yours, Jean is a perfectly balanced and heartbreaking mix of true crime narrative and literary fiction.
When Harper Lee Came up Short: ‘Furious Hours’
Casey Cep traces Harper Lee's winding road to defeat in Furious Hours.
‘The Conspiracy Against the Human Race’ Is a Therapuetic Work of Hardcore Literary Pessimism
This reissue of Thomas Ligotti's most frightening work about the ultimate terror, human existence, might be just what you need in these times.
Serial Killer Drama ‘Rillington Place’ Condemns Midcentury English Patriarchy
This horrifying three-episode BBC mini-series indicts the gender, class, and race hierarchies that enabled John Christie's murders.
Boston Underground Film Festival 2017: ‘Hounds of Love’
The captivity narrative in Hounds of Love explores the depths of a grisly co-dependence.
The Most Hated Woman in America: An Interview With Filmmakers Irene Turner and Tommy O’Haver
PopMatters spoke with writer Irene Turner and director Tommy O'Haver during SXSW 2017 about the remarkable life and death of Madalyn Murray O'Hair.
Contemplations on the Nature of Truth: True Crime, ‘True Detective’, and ‘Serial’ Obsessions
True Detective and Serial mark our society’s preoccupation with all things illegal, especially when they end in murder.