Caçada ao Assassino BTK

180629: If you're a serial killer aficionado like myself, this made for television movie might provide some entertainment. If you're not, you'll be better served finding another avenue.

As the movie opens, Dennis Rader has been arrested for his string of killings over a period of many years in Wichita, Kansas. Through flashbacks, we see the events leading up to his capture, as well as some of the murders.

Gregg Henry had a very challenging role, and in my opinion, he delivered. Dennis Rader was shown as very normal at times, a kind and caring person. In fact, he was so normal the background music made me think of ice cream trucks. Then he was shown as cruel and unfeeling, but not in a situation necessarily related to any murders. Where the murders were planned, Rader was depicted as quite demented and somehow controlled by an unknown force, with background music appropriate to the situation and sometimes so weird it could not even be called music. After his arrest, Rader described what he had done with almost no emotion, as if explaining how he remodeled a house or something, though sometimes he bordered on demented in describing his actions. He seemed to show no remorse, despite being an upstanding member of the community. I am assuming Henry was able to work with footage or good memories to create his impressions of Rader in custody.

The murders were quite scary because of the special editing and visual effects, which may have made them look less graphic but certainly added to the horror of what took place.

Robert Forster did a very capable job as Jason Madiga, a detective on the case. According to what I have read about the case, he was not a real person, but that does not matter. His performance, and the efforts to solve the case, make the movie worthwhile almost as much as Henry's performance.

It was a better than average fact-based TV movie.

This was a historically-accurate depiction of what really occurred. This was overall a good movie. Henry did an exceptional job with the voice and the mannerisms of Rader. Well done.

Dennis Rader went decades living as the BTK Killer (stands for Hunt, Torture, Kill), with his final amount murder list will probably never be known for sure. "The Hunt for the BTK Killer" follows Rader, played by Gregg Henry, and Detective Magida, Robert Forster, the man responsible for taking him down.

This is a very good true to life television film. The story is for the most part correct, and while I don't know if there was a Det. Magida (or if that was the Detective's name) the police investigation kept me interested as to exactly how BTK was caught. Rader's kills are presented in a creepy and fascinating way. Overall the script is tight and consistently keeps your attention.

Henry and Forster are really the only characters that are given much depth, but those two are the only ones that need it. The script typecasts Forster's Magida as your usual cop, he's an older gumshoe working with a beautiful younger actress as partner. Henry does a fantastic job as Rader, his interviews at the end are creepy and award-worthy.

There is a voice-over narration by Forster that guides the film, which I suspect was brought in afterwards to tie up loose ends. In any other case, I would drop the quality down for using the worst tool in the business, but here it actually enlightened about Rader instead of insulting the viewer's intelligence.

If you're interested in BTK, or serial killer media in general, this one is worth a watch.

In all the serial killer films that have been made, why it took a TV movie to define the genre is beyond me. But THIS IS THE ONE!

Serial killer movies hold a strange, special fascination for me which I don't really understand. There's something about these purely evil people. And the best portrayal of a serial killer is right here. Gregg Henry as the BTK killer, a real-life serial killer who got away with his gruesome crimes for over three decades.

Gregg Henry is an actor who stands entirely on his own. There's nobody else like him. Even when he plays nice, straight characters he still seems a little weird. When he plays weird, he plays it to the hilt. I never liked him because of this, until I watched this TV movie. Wow. In fact, I didn't even realize it was him playing the BTK Killer until more than half-way through the movie! That's how completely he disappeared into his character.

And Gregg Henry is such a calm, ordinary citizen on the surface that I can understand how he succeeded in his murderous obsession for so many, many years. He shot way up in my panoply of great actors.