[ad_1]
The four-part docuseries The Night Caller explores the case of Eric Edgar Cooke, a serial killer whose murders terrorized Perth, Australia in the early 1960s. Writer/director Thomas Meadmore uses liberal dramatic reenactments to discuss Cooke’s murders, which happened at night, seemingly at random, and in different ways. He also uses the usual combination of archival footage/newspaper clippings, as well as interviews with people who lived in Perth at the time and some of the people who were involved in the investigation.
Opening Shot: A small house at night. A young woman gets ready for bed and looks at some photographs.
The Gist: The first episode discusses the first few murders that rocked Perth in 1962, though apparently Cooke had been doing his evil deeds for four years prior to that. Penny Berkman, whose life was tumultuous, was found in her home in South Perth, after a night out. Her son — who was a boy at the time, and was being babysat by family friends — is interviewed, and can still remember that night well.
Much of the first episode discusses the differences between the working-class neighborhoods in South Perth and the more white-collar western suburbs; people who lived in that area felt like they were in the safest part of the region, and murders like Berkman’s happened in other parts of the city. Then, a number of months later, Jillian Brewer’s body was found in her bed in her western suburbs home; her boyfriend, Daryl Beamish, is picked up for that killing, though there’s plenty of evidence that said he didn’t do it.
Then on January 26, 1963 — Australia Day — there was a spree of murders and shootings in the western suburbs, with the victims being clustered near each other, but completely random as far as age and gender were concerned. After that spree, life changed for people in Perth; they couldn’t sleep outdoors in the summer they couldn’t keep their doors or windows unlocked, and those who had outdoor bathrooms basically peed in a bedside bucket. Frustration with law enforcement grew because they had little or no evidence to go on. Then Rosemary Anderson was run over in the middle of the night; her boyfriend, John Button, was looked at for Anderson’s killing, and the people of Perth wondered if the serial murder has finally been caught.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The pace of The Night Caller is a bit more laid back than Netflix’s recently-debuting series Night Stalker: Hunt For A Serial Killer, but the killings — two decades apart — are eerily similar, as was how the killer tended to leave little evidence.
Our Take: The Night Caller feels like one of those true crime docuseries that would have been better as a 2-hour documentary instead of a 3-hour, 4-part docuseries. Despite the fact that Meadmore’s concentration was on the families and loved ones that remain baffled by the crimes and how long Cooke got away with them, there seems to be far too much padding to push the story along at a pace that makes a viewer want to follow.
A good for instance is an extended reenactment of when Button, who is recalling the story from his point of view, met Anderson. We get details on the car he drove, and the meet-cute between the two teenagers, who were destined to get married before Anderson got run over. Sure, this might have served as an introduction to their relationship and why Button may have been a person of interest in her death, but it felt like too much storytelling over just giving us facts.
Also, the timeline is a bit hazy. We hear about one murder, then another that happened nine months later, then the flurry that happened on Australia Day. But we do know that Cooke admitted to murders that happened before that, dating back to 1959. Those not familiar with the Cooke case, or didn’t research it like we did, might be confused as to when everything happened. Again, this may have been done in service of storytelling, where the people from the western suburbs can set up how shocking it was that the killer eventually came their way after starting in the more working-class neighborhoods in South Perth. But keeping the timeline straight was a challenge in the first episode.
Then there’s the reenactments. Every true-crime docuseries has them to some extent, but when we start seeing actors spout dialogue, like we see in places in this first episode, then the reenactments start to become too distracting. Again, we understand that the time period where these crimes took place means there was less things like crime scene photos or video news coverage available. But there are ways around this problem without having extended reenactments complete with dialogue.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: In a reenactment, we see two cops getting serious while questioning young John Button (George William O’Doherty). One of them hits the teenager in an attempt to get answers from him.
Sleeper Star: We’re just surprised that most of the people interviewed, who are all in their seventies and eighties, had such remarkable recall of those days. It’s one thing for someone like Button to have traumatic events seared in his memory, but the “Community members” that were interviewed seemed to have a pretty clear memory of that time period, which was almost 60 years ago.
Most Pilot-y Line: Our view on reenactments is pretty clear by now, and the ones here are just a step too far for our taste.
Our Call: SKIP IT. As nicely shot as The Night Caller is, the narrative is too jumbled, and too slowly-paced, to really make a viewer sit up and get engaged with the story.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
Stream The Night Caller On Sundance Now
[ad_2]
Source link
