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Lover, Stalker, Killer (2024)

Lover, Stalker, Killer (2024)

6.8

A true crime documentary that rides solely on the strangeness of its case

Movie

United Kingdom
English
Crime, Documentary
2024

TLDR

It should’ve taken 30 minutes tops to tell this entire story.

What it's about

Dave Kroupa is joined by friends, witnesses, and investigators in telling the twisty tale of how he became the target of murderous love.

The take

The story of how Dave Kroupa excitedly joined online dating sites only to meet a murderous stalker is both distressing and fascinating. You feel for the guy and wonder how a person could commit such heinous crimes. That in itself is a feat: to be genuinely shocked despite the prevalence of true crime documentaries. But Lover, Stalker, Killer takes way too long to get to the point. For a good chunk of the documentary, you’re left wondering how the pieces will fall into place, all while the interviewees are hyping it up to be something truly horrific as if it were a movie or a game, and not an actually traumatic moment that forever altered the course of Kroupa and his family’s life. It’s good that we get a first-hand account of the case from Kroupa himself because otherwise, this would be another case of desensitized, sensationalized fare. The central story is interesting to be sure, but a lack of technical flare and in-depth questioning makes it, overall, flimsy and overlong.

What stands out

Is it just me or do all Netflix true crime documentaries look exactly the same? They use the same lighting, color, framing, and—I’m convinced—the same recycled shots.

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Curated by humans, not algorithms.

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