The Craigslist Killer

In Boston, the bright medical student Philip Markoff (Jake McDorman) is in the top of his class at the Boston University and with a promising future. When he meets the gorgeous Megan McAllister (Agnes Bruckner), they fall in love with each other and move in together to an apartment. Six months later, they travel to New Jersey and Philip proposes to marry her.

However, Philip shows that is also a dysfunctional man that posts in the Craigslist that he loves bondage and travesties and seeks masseuses to submit them to bondage and steals them. When he brutally kills a masseuse from New York that reacts to his attack, Detectives Bennett (William Baldwin) and Frye (Josh Close) track him down and their investigation discover the dark side of promising doctor.

"The Craigslist Killer" is a decent TV movie based on the true story of a man that is a bright student but also a deviant person. The screenplay does not keep the mystery about the behavior of Philip Markoff and just reports his dark story. The romance of Philip and Megan in the beginning is too long, maybe with the intention of explaining her love for him, and there is no explanation for the behavior of Philip. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Assassino da Internet" ("The Internet Killer")

Sub standard, even for a lifetime type of TV movie, which I usually quite like. Characters were annoying and not all that convincing. Was glad when it was over.

There are just so many of these made-for-TV movies produced by the Lifetime Network. Basic movies that try to portray a famous murderer. And I especially use the word "try" because most of these movies are unwatchable.

Many of the elements that the movies of Lifetime Network have in common, can also be found back in this movie: e.g. Too much lighting, inappropriate background music, unstable camera, ...

It is even basic flaws that show how few attention is put towards making the movie period-unique. For instance a med-student wearing a 8,000+ US$ Omega Speedmaster or a police detective wearing a 30,000+ US$ Rolex Daytona... It is details like these, that show the amateurism.

I also had difficulty in positioning all events in a timeline. After watching this movie, I really had no clue about how much time passed between the crimes, the capture and all subsequent events. It is as if all the events took place in a week. This whilst in fact there was a way longer time period in which all events took place.

There is though one thing that favors this movie... There is no alternative movie that tells the story of the Craiglist Killer. And since I find the facts behind this killer so interesting, it compensates partially for the above-mentioned negative elements. I therefore decided to rate it with 4.9 stars (rounded to 5 stars).

I though hope that another production company will make a better movie about this killer.

Like the rest of the world (it was a trending topic on Twitter) I was anxiously awaiting the world premiere of The Craigslist Killer. I'll give it this: for a Lifetime movie, it wasn't half bad. Could it have been better? Yes. At times the acting was bad, the music was cheesy, and it was a bit slow for the first thirty minutes. I was expecting the killing scenes to be a bit more intense than they were, but I guess that's what you get with a woman's network. I think if this had been taken to the big screen and directed by Scorsese it would have been a box office hit. You have to remember that Lifetime is a network directed towards women, so the movies are directed towards women as well (hence all the romance in the beginning.) All in all I'd say it was a decent movie. It wasn't something I would pay money to see, but it was something that filled my time and kept me semi interested.

First of all, I was not familiar with the Craiglist killer before this movie, but I looked it up and the events in the movie appear oversimplified/altered but not so distorted as to make it an unrecognizable story. However, that's about the only positive thing that can be said...

Such a collection of bad choices... The story is about - you guessed it - the Craigslist killer. Philip Markoff led a double life as an engaged, grade A med student, lots of friends, while at the same time seeking out sex workers on Craigslist to rob and humiliate, even killing one. Sounds enaging? Guess again! This movie manages to kill all and any interest the viewers might have.

The script/plot is messy and starts questions that it does not answer. For example, hinting at Markoff's family history, but not following up on that. Showing his M. O., but never explaining why or how he started doing this. And much, much more.

Moreover, the acting is horrible and almost 80% consists of "romantic" lovey dovey scenes between Markoff and his feyoncé. Very stunted dialogues with the senselessness and simplicity, even a teenager would think it's dumb. Ridiculous and superficial. Think level "I love you - no, I love you more", "you're so perfect" and worse. It has no point. If it was meant to give their relationship more credit, as a "how shocking that he lived so separate lives", it just failed. Instead, it comes across as if you're watching a different kind of movie. And the main problem: if you were to cut these parts out, there would be exactly 20 minutes of movie left.

Oh! And the music! "Clueless" or "Dawson's Creek" would have been jealous! It was so stupendously off-the-mark that it was almost funny, had it not been such a serious topic. Romcom songs play in all the scenes involving his bride-to-be, but also in a lot of scenes that had a much darker tone, making it even more inappropriate.

Then there are the few parts about his actual crimes, but these are filmed like it's a low budget student project and with zero suspense. Even though the actual women he attacked must have gone through something terrifying and traumatic, in the movie it elicites no empathetic or emotional resposne in the viewer. Even near the ending of the movie, it left me wondering what the point was of making this movie.

The events that happened in real life could have been adapted to the screen in a respectful and captivating movie. This movie is not that. It seems amateuristic and as if it does not get the point of its own story.