It seems that serial killer dramatizations are the flavor of the season. With shows like Ryan Murphy’s Monster anthology, the newest installation of which focuses on Ed Gein, as well as documentaries like Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer, and the fictional and recently finished You, there’s certainly no shortage of shows to pick from if this is your genre of choice—and it looks like there’s a new show sitting at the top of the pile for you to check out.
Devil In Disguise: John Wayne Gacy dropped two days ago on Peacock, and it’s holding firm to its 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The official summary keeps things brief, telling us what we already know: “Chicago-area contractor John Wayne Gacy leads a double-life as a serial killer, while detectives piece together clues that lead to a shocking discovery.” And audiences are lauding the show for not repeating the mistakes of so many others who attempt to tell a serial killer’s story—romanticizing or glorifying the killer and forgetting about the victims and their families.
Audiences seem to appreciate the way that the series is approaching not only John Wayne Gacy himself, but the legacy of pain and trauma that he left behind for the families of the victims he tortured and killed. “Good pacing, the flashbacks to focus on who the victims were, emphasis on how the investigation and trial had an impact on those around the trial moreso than a focus on Gacy. Plus, so far at least, there’s been no push to try and humanize him that’s been done in other serial killer miniseries,” said one user on Reddit. Another followed up with, “Way better than Ryan Murphy’s garbage.”
The show isn’t above criticism or reproach, though. USA Today reviewer Kelly Lawler gave the show two out of five stars, going on to say that the show portrays Gacy’s crimes through a “more distant, fuzzy lens with which to retell the events.” According to her, the result is “a series that is both viscerally awful and tonally bland, as inoffensive as anything about serial sexual assault and murder could possibly be.”
It’s hard to move away from a simple rehashing of the facts without bringing an element of glamour to the focus of the show, but Devil In Disguise does its best to do just that. Does it fall a little flat at points? Sure. But it’s easy to overlook that fact when the care with which Gacy’s victims and their families are treated becomes more of the focus than Gacy himself. “Just finished this series and it’s everything that I wish Ryan Murphy’s “Monsters” series was, said a Reddit user. “Most importantly, it respects the victims. I loved how it gave us scenes from their lives, and then showed us the real-life photos at the end of each episode. It emphasizes over and over again that the victims are the most important part of the story. Something so many other serial killer series fail to do.”
Do you think Devil In Diguise: John Wayne Gacy deserves its 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes? Let us know your thoughts before you head over to the ComicBook forum to see what other fans are saying.
The post Disturbing New Serial Killer Show With MCU Star Scores A Perfect 100% On Rotten Tomatoes appeared first on ComicBook.com.
