Monsters Inside: Die 24 Gesichter des Billy Milligan

The story of Billy Milligan was very interesting but horribly edited and over-edited. I thought this series spent too much time running the same clips over and over (the scene of Billy's Mother for example). The series, especially the last couple episodes, were too dragged out and the series could have easily been a lot shorter. I thought this series could have easily been wrapped up better in less episodes.

I'll put it this way - if someone was interested in Billy Milligan I would perhaps recommend them doing some research or watching some videos online before I would recommend this overproduced documentary.

Director Olivier Megaton, known for his overly stylistic film-making, offers a tiring, troublesome, and nauseating take on infamous criminal Billy Milligan, who was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. The material could have been a lot crisper - at most, a two-part documentary instead of four. There are too many interviews taking place at weird locations, a lot of shaky cam, flashy cuts, and a background score that rarely appears aligned with the stuff we're watching. I was left weary by the time the series ended, not caring what anybody had to say about Milligan - he could've been suffering from DID. Still, he committed some very heinous crimes (including rape and murder) that the justice system at the time was willing to be lenient on.

The first couple of episodes carry all the informational weight; the rest feel like random people giving random opinions on Milligan's cases and their aftermath. The interviews with Billy's siblings were clearly the most eye-opening amongst the lot. All the journalists, cops, attorneys, and mental health specialists seemed to take way too much time trying to opine what they believed in. This, in turn, sensationalized Billy's life and, in turn, lessened that of his victims' - the self-centered, narcissistic Billy (now dead) would have loved seeing this documentary himself. The popularity this guy got to the point of James Cameron deciding to make a film on him, alongside his escapades in Hollywood and Las Vegas, are downright ludicrous.

Director Megaton isn't the best choice for a subject like this. His is a very rapid, too-much-happening, cue-glitchy-transitions style of making that felt out of place. He seems fixated on how offbeat he can make the film look, much less on its core emotions. I had to take pauses while watching this - either the material became almost filler-like, or the horrible editing left my eyes sore. Netflix usually does a good-to-great job in the department of true crime content, but Monsters Inside isn't something that I'd recommend to anyone.

I'm sorry to say but I'm not sure the director of this documentary know what he is doing. The scenarios where the various actors are interviewed are hilarious out of place: inside a safe? Between two shelves? In a cell? Along some corridors? The editing is confusing, musics excessive.

The story is interesting but very poorly told.

This documentary is chaotic, the storyline is as disjointed as the choppy editing. While the story is interesting, there is just too much going on and the doc tries to cover it all. Spending too much time in the first two episodes replaying the same interview footage and then rushing through 40 years in the last two episodes. Too many people were interviewed, and what was with the French psychologists?! A wild story but a poorly made documentary.

This is a truly remarkable story, if you are interested in Mental Disorders of Criminals then this is the story you want to watch. Sadly this telling of the story is shocking, each episode feels like it's been on for hours and you're only half way through the episode, if it had been filmed differently you actually wouldn't mind this as you'd be enthralled by the story but oh my this is boring, why so many interviews with people who didn't add anything to the story? Why do the interviews to camera in strange locations to add drama ?

Clearly there was enough film of Billy under questioning by Police or Doctors to create a more interesting documentary.