Carl Panzram: The Spirit of Hatred and Vengeance

Just another guy cooking music a lot of murders nothing special about him it's sad when Riders producers or whoever gets around the table and talk about what they're going to work on running out of ideas and you just put anything it's nothing special about this man what he did director had no imagination:JOHN BOROWSKI

I have watched many documentaries of all kinds and attempted to be as open-minded as possible. In this case, however, I simple cannot be. I have never seen such an attempt to excuse, and soften the story of someone who was quite frankly and monster. All this by people, who would quite likely have been amongst Carl Panzram's victims had the opportunity been provided, this to include the hero of the story, Prison guard Henry Lesser…. Disgusting. Pity I suppose for this same cast of characters that they didn't have access to Hitler or Pol Pot so as to find out about their tragic childhoods and thus soften the evil of their crimes….

Near the end of the documentary it tries to portray Lesser as some kind of hero. Why? What did he do except have a morbid curiosity about Panzram? Why does saving a serial killer's manifesto make someone a hero. That was irresponsible.

Also, they try to portray Panzram as some kind of Sherpa who is telling humanity that they need to change their ways.

The guy was a complete psycho. Let's not forget that.

He murdered.

He raped.

He stole.

A horrible human being.

I just finished Ryan Green's book on Panzram and this film is a perfect companion piece to it. Carl was a vicious rapist and murderer who left behind a surprisingly well written journal of his many misdeeds. With little formal education, he was a natural born killer and writer. I am not fond of reenactments but they are well done in this case. The story is an amazing one and I highly recommend this documentary.

Is it really Carl Panzram's fault that he was born into a family of poverty, alcoholism, abuse and neglect? Carl Panzram was the type of man that the world would have been a much better place not running into him. He knew only one way to survive and that was to brutalize and rape his victims. His pain threshold and abnormal strength were well documented as were his very long list of crimes.

Like a bad car accident that you cannot turn your head away from while driving by, I had to watch this documentary and I am glad I did. I wouldn't want to ever be 1,000 miles near Carl Panzram but in some weird way I still empathize with the life that Carl Panzram was subjected to living in and out of multiple hardcore prisons.

I give this documentary a credible 8 out of 10 IMDb rating.