Killer Legends
(2014) Joshua Zeman, Rachel Mills

A bit disappointed in this one. Made by the team who brought us Cropsey (which I’ve wanted to watch for forever, but just haven’t gotten around to it), it promised to be good. But the first thing I noticed was that the man, Joshua, seemed to be more interested in having his face on the camera than his guests. If he wasn’t in a particular frame, he’d actually lean forward so that he was. His feigned sadness was also a little grating, because it was very obviously fake. He’d stand at a murder sight, talk in a mournful voice, shuffle his feet, sigh, etc. The girl, Rachel, also did it, but to a much lesser degree. Joshua’s voice-over voice was also grating, much different from his normal talking voice, and slightly ridiculous.

Now that we’ve got all the bad aside, we can focus on the good. The subject matter was very interesting, the premise being that urban legends always come from some truth. They take four famous legends (The Hook Man, Killer Clowns, The Babysitter Killer, and Deadly Halloween Candy) and dig around to find real life cases that might have been the beginning of these legends. They travel to the towns where the murders happened, talk to the locals, and, if there are any left alive, people who were there when the crime happened. It was quite interesting. Despite the fact that I spent the entire film wanting to punch the guy in the face, I still give it a 7/10, because the content was very interesting. But dude, if ever you read this (which I doubt), here’s a little advice: Unless it’s an autobiography, the audience isn’t interested in seeing you. The focus should be on the subject of the documentary.

This film is currently playing on Netflix US and YouTube. Although I should probably warn you, there are crime scene photos. Pretty graphic too. So if real dead bodies scare the crap out of you, stay far, far away.

M.