Perverse Karla

Based on an infamous real-life case, "Karla" tells the story of a woman named Karla Homolka (Laura Prepon) who gets involved with an upwardly mobile and superficially charming Paul Bernardo (Misha Collins), a man who evaded arrest as the real-life "Scarborough Rapist". In the film, the two hunt down several young girls who are eventually murdered, either by Karla or by Paul. The attacks took place, and the movie is set, in Ontario, Canada, near Toronto. The time period is the early 1990s.

What I find annoying here is the script's POV and plot structure. The entire film is told from Homolka's point of view which, not surprisingly, minimizes her involvement in the various crimes, and to some extent paints her as something of an abused victim of Bernardo. Further, the awful crimes are told in flashback, as she relates them to a prison psychiatrist. These in-house prison scenes are dull and slow. Though Homolka no doubt bears a lot of responsibility for what happened, the real devil here is Paul Bernardo. And the script should have been a straightforward rendering of the murders wherein both Karla and Paul were present.

Casting and acting are fine. Photography contains a lot of side lighting, which casts a gloomy mood over many scenes. Some of the music is eerie and ominous, which foreshadows oncoming dreadful actions.

There was at least one attempt to ban this film, which would have amounted to censorship. Many viewers hate this movie because they feel like it's an attempt to capitalize on human suffering. But many crime films are based on true-life murders and other non-fiction tragedies.

The appropriate audience for this film would be viewers who are interested in true crime, and who can look dispassionately on the people involved, including villains. I'm glad I saw "Karla" because it is based on a real-life case, but I don't think I want to watch it again.

I was very disturbed to see some of the comments made about this movie. It was said that "the murder and gratuitous violence scenes were not explicit or even realistic"! They were plenty explicit and realistic, enough that I almost stopped the movie. Also, it has to be understood why Canadians did not support this movie. The victims in this movie were children victims, of a smallish, "quiet calm" community, and they were the children of this community. Imagine if this happened to your next door neighbours child, or YOUR child, and then someone wants to make a movie about it! You would be infuriated! I lived in Welland, Ontario when these people were on the loose. I was 12 years old, and my parents were paranoid nervous wrecks until these people were arrested. The day they were arrested, we did not have any classes, they parked us in front of the TV's to watch the news, and so we would have peace of mind that these evil sickos were off the street, and we were safe from them. They terrorized the communities, even the ones that we have no knowledge of them being in, they were close enough to us, that it was very possible that one of the victims could have been one of my friends, they were just too close to us. So, when you complain that this movie was not real enough, or explicit enough, just remember, it not JUST a movie, it was real life! And what you see in the movie is not even the half of all the horrible things they REALLY did.

Karla was difficult to watch. Not necessarily because of the subject matter or that it's based on real events. No. It was difficult to watch because they tried to make you feel bad for Karla. The woman knowingly married a serial rapist. She willingly made a gift of her younger sister to him. The same sister that died because of it. Not to mention she participated in the rape and murder of several children and managed to cop a plea deal on the whole thing when caught by concealing evidence along with help from her lawyer.

Karla Homolka was not a victim. She was a willing participant and any attempt to turn her into a sympathetic character is just pissing on the graves of the people she helped to kill.

Girl falls in love with boy, discovers he's a rapist, marries him and colludes in his continued depravity, then gets caught.

Earnest tale told in plain flashback, with no insight on the characters and no interest in the nature of truth and little by way of visceral horror. The killing scenes are tame, giving no sense of the rush of adrenalin in perpetrators or victims, or the ugliness and finality of violent death. So overall it feels like an old-fashioned made for TV movie.

You get to the postscript and find an entirely different character from the one portrayed by the lead actress, and it's a real head scratcher to think they didn't use that angle to mess things up and break from the linear story telling.

Performances are fine. Lighting is mostly bright, so no great moodiness. Music did its job.

Overall: Simple tale of depravity that didn't feel depraved.

Seems there was controversy in Canada over this, and several of the actors repudiated the film, with lurid tales of misconduct on the set. Its real weakness is that it pulls its punches and fails to be nasty enough.

Being Canadian and the fact this film isn't widely available up here I feel compelled to offer some comment on what many consider a tragic story exploited for financial gain to no end.

Those of us that lived this story back in the early 1990's and the subsequent trial of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka can attest to the degree of disgust many felt at the crimes these two committed. The film is accurate in many respects as to details of the story, but make no mistake that the details were far more sadistic and brutal than what has been portrayed in this movie. At least to those of us that have read the transcripts of the videotapes that Bernardo took of his victims, and one can hardly blame the director from omitting those details or forcing an actor to play such a role out.

My only beef with this movie however is that it does attempt to paint a picture of Karla Homolka being just as much a victim here as Bernardo, and although no one can deny she was under his influence and subject to this violent outbursts, to suggest she had no control over this situation and simply tagged along for the ride is to suggest that she was just as much a victim of Bernardo as the two murder victims. Those versed in this case know much better and the role she may have played in the death of Kristen French (aka Kaitlyn Ross) is something we'll likely never know as there are those that suggest she was directly responsible for killing the second victim.

The acting in this film is nothing notable, but given the nature of the roles played here it's wonder they found anyone to play these two to begin with. Because of the difficult subject matter I'll let the mediocre acting pass because for it to be much better would almost be like saying the actors immersed themselves perhaps a little too much in characters that most would find revolting and if not downright sickening.

In the final analysis, 'Karla' is a film you'll only watch once and personally I don't think this was necessarily ever meant to be a movie for mass consumption either at the theatre or your local videostore. That being said, Canadians should have the right to see this movie for those so inclined vs. having the state tell us what is suitable or unsuitable for our viewing pleasure as there are movies out on the market FAR more disturbing about real life events than this flick could ever hope to be.