STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful
In 2015, young couple Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn found themselves the target of a brutal home invasion, with Aaron gettIng tied up, and Denise getting abducted. With nothing other than his word to corroborate it, suspicion fell on him having enacted foul play on her. Until Denise miraculously reappeared, only for suspicion to fall on both of them, with them being accused of reenacting the film Gone Girl. But Denise had an account of her own, that cast the police department that investigates her case in a terribly compromising light, before a series of similar crimes were exposed across states.
It's deeply unsettling how much perverse entertainment can be found in 'true crime' dramas, real life misery recounted for the viewing of the masses, from the special section in the bookstores, and more increasingly these days, on Netflix. One of the latest would be this succinct three part drama, recalling a particularly far flung case, that leaves a fairly lasting impression.
As an unfolding saga (certainly to those who aren't aware of the outcome), it's more genuinely intriguing than your average crime thriller trotted out on the screen, genuinely keeping you on the edge of your seat with how things are going to turn out, however morbid this might be as a true life story. As a couple caught up in this, Denise and Aaron seem like a typical, all-American pair, and you can sense the devastation, as they describe their ordeal, as well as the incompetence/corruption they experienced from the local police force. It's always creepy in these cases how humanistic the perpetrators can be, with the culprit here apparently calmly explaining how he had to carry out their crime, and even giving tips on how to avoid it happening again to another couple he wasn't so lucky with, not like in the movies at all.
It's certainly not easy viewing, but as a short, sweet account of an unthinkable crime, it does its job just marvellously. ****
In 2015, young couple Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn found themselves the target of a brutal home invasion, with Aaron gettIng tied up, and Denise getting abducted. With nothing other than his word to corroborate it, suspicion fell on him having enacted foul play on her. Until Denise miraculously reappeared, only for suspicion to fall on both of them, with them being accused of reenacting the film Gone Girl. But Denise had an account of her own, that cast the police department that investigates her case in a terribly compromising light, before a series of similar crimes were exposed across states.
It's deeply unsettling how much perverse entertainment can be found in 'true crime' dramas, real life misery recounted for the viewing of the masses, from the special section in the bookstores, and more increasingly these days, on Netflix. One of the latest would be this succinct three part drama, recalling a particularly far flung case, that leaves a fairly lasting impression.
As an unfolding saga (certainly to those who aren't aware of the outcome), it's more genuinely intriguing than your average crime thriller trotted out on the screen, genuinely keeping you on the edge of your seat with how things are going to turn out, however morbid this might be as a true life story. As a couple caught up in this, Denise and Aaron seem like a typical, all-American pair, and you can sense the devastation, as they describe their ordeal, as well as the incompetence/corruption they experienced from the local police force. It's always creepy in these cases how humanistic the perpetrators can be, with the culprit here apparently calmly explaining how he had to carry out their crime, and even giving tips on how to avoid it happening again to another couple he wasn't so lucky with, not like in the movies at all.
It's certainly not easy viewing, but as a short, sweet account of an unthinkable crime, it does its job just marvellously. ****