The Most Bingeable True Crime Doc In Recent Memory

Hey Creepy Catalogers,

This is a fun weekend for anyone who hasn’t seen any of I’ll Be Gone In the Dark on HBO. The 6-episode look into the extremely dark history of the serial killer, rapist, and former police officer known as the East Area Rapist, Original Nightstalker, Visalia Ransacker and finally as the Golden State Killer finished this week which means it’s a premium opportunity to binge the entire series this weekend. 

Crime writer Michelle McNamara obsessively followed the case from 2006 until her death in 2016. Her research was published posthumously as the (really awesome!) book I’ll Be Gone In the Dark and the series tells Michelle’s story as she tracked the killer and helped lead to his eventual identification and arrest a few months after her book was published. Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. was caught by a cold-case investigator who uploaded the killer’s DNA to an ancestry website. DeAngelo is responsible for at least 13 murders, 50 rapes, and 100 burglaries in California.

You can stream the show anywhere you have an HBO Max subscription. I’ll warn you now that even if you watch in the middle of the day, you’re going to be very creeped out. To help understand why, here’s a voicemail he left taunting one of the women he raped, this is no light viewing experience:

Streaming on: Hulu or Prime (with an HBO Max subscription)

Sinister/Sinister 2 — Netflix. These movies are some of the most slept on horror movies of all time and they’re both free on Netflix right now. Sinister is a supernatural horror film about a true crime writer (Ethan Hawke) who moves his family into a house where the previous family was violently murdered. While you don’t hear about these on “best of” lists very often, they are both creepy, well-paced, genuinely scary horror movies and back-to-back they make the perfect horror movie date night in for your weekend. 

Streaming on: Netflix

The Lighthouse — Amazon Prime. I personally did not like this movie but it got “great reviews” so if you’re into that kind of thing you should know it’s free on Prime this month. A few warnings if your taste is closer to mine: it’s in black and white, it’s all men, and it’s kinda quiet/weird. You should watch it when you are in the mood to pay attention!

Streaming on: Prime

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Honorable mention:

I try to do only one movie that’s not on a standard streaming service per week, but NPR called this movie the “most 2020” movie of 2020 so I have to drop in a plug for She Dies Tomorrow which premieres today.

Streaming on: Amazon

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Other horror happenings

• For those horror fans who cut their teeth on Twilight when they were too young for real horror, you should probably know that Stephanie Meyer just released a fifth book in the Twilight universe. Midnight Sun tells the events of Twilight from Edward’s POV. It’s out now. (PS: Twilight is also streaming free on Prime this month). 
• I matched with a guy on Tinder who doesn’t exist.
• We made a list of horror movies with lots of nudity. Check it out ya pervs!
• One of our writers wondered, is there a Glee curse?

Happy streaming! We’ll be back next week with another weekend watch guide.