Scène de crime: Le tueur de Times Square

By 1980, the sex district attached to Times Square had grown from 42nd street to Central Park and extended as far south as 35th street. At dusk, young women clad in silk dresses and heels invaded the bars in the luxury hotels of Midtown, and walked up and down Avenue of the Americas, looking for tricks. The sex trade changed as it got closer to Times Square itself, devolving into kiosks selling hard porn newspaper, live sex shows, on premises sex clubs, and "touch joints" where men paid to interact with the performers.

In the years after the pill and before the AIDS epidemic, every major city had a Times Square, but no place (not even tolerant Mitchell Brothers San Francisco) was like that area of NYC. It was the epicenter of sex and sex tourism, and one of the major attractions for adventurous couples and single men.

Into this Wild West atmosphere came a serial killer who was also a sexual sadist. However, in an area when rape was seldom prosecuted but prostitution was, it's impossible to know how many victims the killer had before he began mutilating the corpses and getting into the news. He kept killing, not until he was caught by police work, but until he was trying to murder a prostitute in a hotel. When she fought back, she was rescued by a hotel maid.

The circumstances of the man's capture by a victim and another woman say so much about criminal Justice, prostitution and men. While the murderer's male coworkers know there is something off about him, but do nothing, and the male cops fail to convict him in spite of the evidence, two women from the Pink Collar Ghetto catch him in the act.

It's the most interesting part of the case, and Joe Berlinger fails to highlight it. (Maybe that's why there should be more women making films about men who do violence to women).

The second most interesting part of the case is that the daughter of one of the killer's victim is pursuing a friendship with the murderer to help find out who his other victims are. It too is a trail that Berlinger doesn't follow. (I found out about it by reading an article in an NJ paper!)

Why are these points important? Because, in spite of the police in the film saying that the Wild West of Times Square ended with AIDS, at least 16 bodies of prostitutes have been found on Gilgo Beach, less than 40 miles from Times Square,

Women are still being murdered, and nothing seems to have changed in how the crimes are being investigated. Shouldn't that be the point of the series?

The series, which is drawn to the grisly and seedy parts of the original murders, fails to put either the killer or his victims into context. By treating them as "something that happened a lot during the 70s," it fails to understand sex crimes, sex criminals, prostitution or the way it is happening again.

If I'm being honest, I missed some of the 2nd episode because I kept falling asleep. Some of that was not having had a lot of sleep lately but the show just wasn't what it's purported to be. It's more a story about the tawdry pornography of Times Square before it got cleaned up. It focused on the sex workers as well as the peep shows and sex clubs that were so prevalent back then. The murders were almost a side story and admittedly started the series off with a bang with a double murder in a hotel near Times Square. Clearly the murders were done by a deranged man. And then another murder happens. And so the investigation began. That part of the story kept this at 5/10 stars for me. It's before DNA and surveillance cameras so it was interesting to watch what the police did with little to no evidence. But, as I said before, this is mainly a story about Times Square when it was a dangerous part of the city. It's full of pimps and XXX rated movies and former prostitutes telling their stories. Former police officers from that time period as well as that particular case were also interviewed. When it wasn't talking about the murders I did get a bit bored. Sorry. I just think it would have been better told with less about the sex trade and pornography and more about the murders. It might have made it shorter, but that would have been to the good, not the detriment of the documentary.

The Torso killer, a man that terrorised sex workers in Time Square back in the 1970's, this three part series tells the story, providing details about the crimes, victims, killer and the famous place itself.

It's a very well produced documentary series, very well edited and put together, with some fascinating footage, and amazing, insightful interviews.

It could perhaps have been done in two parts, it did lag a little in the middle, but the opener and conclusion were both very watchable.

It doesn't shy away, it's very detailed, and gives you some pretty gruesome information.

Cotingham, one very disturbed man, hard to believe how long he got away with his crimes for.

Interesting, 7/10.

It tended to drift away from the murders and story into the sordid history of Time Square and in episode one after maybe twenty minutes it got somewhat perverted. Graphic pictures and interviewees just droning on about Time Square sex exploits, Uninterested. When it focused on the murders and story it was a lot more interesting.

Literally forgot I was watching about a serial killer and not a documentary on Time Square sex industry in the 70's. The whole doc could have been 1 episode or just a doc film.