While looking for a project to follow the success of his films The French Connection and The Exorcist, director William Friedkin came across a book he found to be fascinating: Cruising by Gerald Walker, about “a series of murders in the gay bars of New York, and a detective assigned to go undercover to find the killer”. But Friedkin had already made a movie that centered on gay characters, The Boys in the Band, so he let the Cruising adaptation go by. For a while, Steven Spielberg was attached to direct the film, but wasn’t able to get it into production. In his memoir The Friedkin Connection, Friedkin revealed that it wasn’t until someone he worked with on The Exorcist turned out to be a real-life serial killer that he thought of the way to approach Cruising.
Friedkin wrote in The Friedkin Connection that in 1979 he started seeing...
Friedkin wrote in The Friedkin Connection that in 1979 he started seeing...
- 10/23/2023
- by Cody Hamman
- JoBlo.com
Few major Hollywood pictures have developed the kind of infernal reputation that "The Exorcist" has since its release in 1973. The audience reaction to its shocking scenes is the stuff of legend and religious figures have widely deplored it. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office of Film and Broadcasting (Usccb-ofb) condemned the film; The Christian Century labeled it "hardcore pornography;" and evangelist Billy Graham also had plenty to say (via Sage Journals). He stated that watching the film was like "exposing oneself to the Devil" and that "there is a power of evil in the film, in the fabric of the film itself" (via True Crime Edition).
Was Graham right? If the myth is to be believed, "The Exorcist" was surrounded by malevolent forces from Day One; William Friedkin's production was apparently beset by a series of mishaps, bad omens, accidents, injuries, illnesses, and even deaths, with nine...
Was Graham right? If the myth is to be believed, "The Exorcist" was surrounded by malevolent forces from Day One; William Friedkin's production was apparently beset by a series of mishaps, bad omens, accidents, injuries, illnesses, and even deaths, with nine...
- 1/26/2023
- by Lee Adams
- Slash Film
Warning: This story contains spoilers for the first two episodes of American Horror Story: NYC.
American Horror Story: NYC seems a culmination of everything Ryan Murphy has made in the past: It’s like if Pose met Dahmer met the Rubber Man, the mysterious murderous figure that we first met in AHS season one.
Over the first two episodes, which premiered Wednesday on FX and is now streaming on Hulu, we meet a cast of characters trying to survive New York in 1981, specifically a mysterious illness infecting both deer on...
American Horror Story: NYC seems a culmination of everything Ryan Murphy has made in the past: It’s like if Pose met Dahmer met the Rubber Man, the mysterious murderous figure that we first met in AHS season one.
Over the first two episodes, which premiered Wednesday on FX and is now streaming on Hulu, we meet a cast of characters trying to survive New York in 1981, specifically a mysterious illness infecting both deer on...
- 10/20/2022
- by Brenna Ehrlich
- Rollingstone.com
In autumn 1977, Village Voice columnist Arthur Bell sat down in Riker's Island Detention Center to interview the man who murdered his friend. As an LGBTQ activist, he had covered many gay issues, starting with the Stonewall riots back in '69. More recently, he had written about a series of unsolved killings in New York's gay community, and his work had inadvertently ended up catching the murderer of Addison Verrill, a reporter for Variety.
The man Bell was visiting in Riker's, Paul Bateson, had read Bell's article and called him up to confess to the murder. A second caller helped the police identify him. Bell concludes his article, "A Talk...
The post The Cruising Controversy Explained appeared first on /Film.
The man Bell was visiting in Riker's, Paul Bateson, had read Bell's article and called him up to confess to the murder. A second caller helped the police identify him. Bell concludes his article, "A Talk...
The post The Cruising Controversy Explained appeared first on /Film.
- 3/29/2022
- by Lee Adams
- Slash Film
Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt expanded the visual aesthetic of David Fincher’s “Mindhunter” in Season 2, as FBI profilers Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) investigate the notorious Atlanta Child Murders, and, as a result, he earned his first Emmy nomination.
“Our aim was to continue what we had developed in Season 1 while considering location with a bit more depth,” said Messerschmidt, who also shot Fincher’s “Mank,” the Netflix black-and-white biopic about “Citizen Kane” screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman). “David expressed to me in the beginning to never forget what Atlanta is like in the summer. I tried hard to consider that whenever we were telling that part of the story.
“We really wanted our agents to be visualized with location in mind,” he said, “so I used more hard sunlight, atmosphere, and contrast to contribute to that hot, muggy feel. I think you could make the...
“Our aim was to continue what we had developed in Season 1 while considering location with a bit more depth,” said Messerschmidt, who also shot Fincher’s “Mank,” the Netflix black-and-white biopic about “Citizen Kane” screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman). “David expressed to me in the beginning to never forget what Atlanta is like in the summer. I tried hard to consider that whenever we were telling that part of the story.
“We really wanted our agents to be visualized with location in mind,” he said, “so I used more hard sunlight, atmosphere, and contrast to contribute to that hot, muggy feel. I think you could make the...
- 8/21/2020
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
Erik Messerschmidt earned his first Emmy nomination this summer: Best Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (One Hour) for his work on the true-crime drama “Mindhunter.” It’s bittersweet, though, since Netflix put the show on indefinite hold after its second season, which aired last summer. “I loved working on the show,” he remembers. “It’s a unicorn in a way. It was a unique situation where everybody was working towards the same goal and everyone was very in sync in terms of what we were trying to accomplish.” Watch our exclusive video interview with the director of photography above.
He is nominated specifically for his work in episode six, during which FBI agents Ford and Tench (Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany) search for missing children in Atlanta while Dr. Carr and Agent Smith (Anna Torv and Joe Tuttle) interview convicted killer Paul Bateson. “I just felt like we had a...
He is nominated specifically for his work in episode six, during which FBI agents Ford and Tench (Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany) search for missing children in Atlanta while Dr. Carr and Agent Smith (Anna Torv and Joe Tuttle) interview convicted killer Paul Bateson. “I just felt like we had a...
- 8/13/2020
- by Daniel Montgomery
- Gold Derby
Based on the real cases of former special agent John E. Douglas, Netflix's Mindhunter features chilling dramatized interviews with serial killers. Because the Behavioral Science Unit expands in season two, the team chats with some of the biggest names in true-crime history, including Charles Manson and Paul Bateson. And yes, the co-ed and Btk killers make haunting returns. While the series focuses on the tragic Atlanta murders in this latest batch of episodes, we see not only one or two serial killers, but 10 different perpetrators. Keep reading to see how these disturbed individuals fit into the context of season two and what you need to know about their crimes.
- 8/27/2019
- by Stacey Nguyen
- Popsugar.com
Joseph Baxter Kirsten Howard Mike Cecchini May 7, 2019
Mindhunter Season 2 will have a whole new batch of serial killers to contend with.
Based on the 1995 book Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, Netflix’s Mindhunter adapts real FBI serial killer cases documented in the book, set against an atmosphere of insatiable lust and darkness. With suspense-minded visionary David Fincher and Charlize Theron as executive producers, Mindhunter isn't a run of the mill crime procedural. The first season was a hit with viewers, and Netflix has confirmed that Mindhunter Season 2 is happening.
A small handful of directors have been announced for season 2's 8 parts, too, including Fincher himself (whose schedule was freed up after Paramount's cancellation of World War Z 2). He'll be calling the shots on both the opening episode and the season finale, with Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James) taking on two episodes,...
Mindhunter Season 2 will have a whole new batch of serial killers to contend with.
Based on the 1995 book Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, Netflix’s Mindhunter adapts real FBI serial killer cases documented in the book, set against an atmosphere of insatiable lust and darkness. With suspense-minded visionary David Fincher and Charlize Theron as executive producers, Mindhunter isn't a run of the mill crime procedural. The first season was a hit with viewers, and Netflix has confirmed that Mindhunter Season 2 is happening.
A small handful of directors have been announced for season 2's 8 parts, too, including Fincher himself (whose schedule was freed up after Paramount's cancellation of World War Z 2). He'll be calling the shots on both the opening episode and the season finale, with Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James) taking on two episodes,...
- 4/7/2017
- Den of Geek
"From the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." —Immanuel Kant.
Even before I knew what a cinephilic sensibility was, mine was being shaped by the evolving filmic projects of William Friedkin and their focus on humanity's crooked timber. As a participatory member of the Gay Movement of the early 70s, I resisted the scriptural representation in Friedkin's The Boys In the Band (1970) and—a decade later—Cruising (1980), but was undeniably swept up in the Catholicized hysteria surrounding The Exorcist (1973), which I managed to catch at its Bible Belt premiere in Little Rock, Arkansas. The French Connection (1971) challenged Peter Yate's earlier Bullitt (1968) with its iconic car chase and Sorcerer (1977) dazzled me with its suspenseful virtuosity and has continued to intrigue me with its court battle over copyright. To Live And Die in L.A. (1985) introduced me to the talent of such actors as William Petersen and Willem DeFoe; but,...
Even before I knew what a cinephilic sensibility was, mine was being shaped by the evolving filmic projects of William Friedkin and their focus on humanity's crooked timber. As a participatory member of the Gay Movement of the early 70s, I resisted the scriptural representation in Friedkin's The Boys In the Band (1970) and—a decade later—Cruising (1980), but was undeniably swept up in the Catholicized hysteria surrounding The Exorcist (1973), which I managed to catch at its Bible Belt premiere in Little Rock, Arkansas. The French Connection (1971) challenged Peter Yate's earlier Bullitt (1968) with its iconic car chase and Sorcerer (1977) dazzled me with its suspenseful virtuosity and has continued to intrigue me with its court battle over copyright. To Live And Die in L.A. (1985) introduced me to the talent of such actors as William Petersen and Willem DeFoe; but,...
- 8/13/2012
- MUBI
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