Top 5 Things You Need to Know About Mindhunter

Television isn’t exactly short on crime dramas or police procedurals, but few can boast source material written by one of the founding fathers of criminal profiling. “Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit” recounts the harrowing crimes faced by FBI agent turned author John E. Douglas during his time with the Bureau, and takes a deep dive into how psychology played a role in solving each crime. Sound familiar? It should. He served as the inspiration for Jack Crawford in the Hannibal Lecter series. Though the main character is named Holden Ford in the Netflix series, much like Jack Crawford, Ford is modelled after John E. Douglas.

Speaking of Holden Ford… Netflix managed to nab a rather talented young man to bring this version of John E. Douglas to life. Jonathan Groff might not be a household like some of the behind-the-scenes players we’ll be discussing later on, but he’s certainly an accomplished actor. His role as King George III in Hamilton earned him a TONY award nomination. From 2014 to 2016, he starred in the HBO series “Looking”. Though he got his start in theater, he came to the attention of a much larger audience after stealing scenes in the role of Jesse St. James on Glee. Oh, and did we mention that he voiced Kristoff in Disney’s Frozen? Talented indeed.

How does a show distinguish itself in an oversaturated genre? By approaching that well-tread thematic ground from a refreshing new direction. Mindhunter is not particularly interested by the dirty details of the crimes themselves, but rather the minds behind them. The series doesn’t obsess or fetishize the violence like so many of its contemporaries. As James Poniewozik of the New York Times put it so succinctly, Mindhunter “is more chatter than splatter”. The sobering series works to dismantle the cult of the serial killer by breaking them down to their psychological profiles. Don’t get us wrong, there are plenty of horrifying moments, they just tend to come via conversation rather than a shot of a dismembered corpse.

The even pacing, realism and attention to detail of this series shouldn’t really surprise you considering the man behind it. David Fincher, who has delved deep into the subject matter of serial killers in such excellent films as “Se7en” and “Zodiac”, serves as executive producer of Mindhunter and actually directed four out of the ten episodes in the first season. Of course, he’s not the only celeb involved. A-list actress Charlize Theron joins him as a fellow executive producer. Of course, both of these big names have worked with Netflix as producers before - Fincher on House of Cards, and Theron with Girlboss. Clearly they enjoy the way Netflix works!

Douglas’ book is not a work of fiction. In it, he provides a firsthand account of his experiences dealing with some of the most notorious serial killers and criminals in United States history. Serial killers might be a dime a dozen on television these days, but in Mindhunter, you’re getting dramatic interpretations of real life murderers from the pages of America’s colorful criminal past. Edmund Kemper, aka the Co-Ed Killer, Monte Ralph Rissel, Jerry Brudos, aka the Shoe Fetish Slayer, Richard Speck, and Darrell Gene Devier are just a handful of the sinister individuals you’ll see brought to life in this dramatic series. Be warned though… you’ll be taking a close look into some seriously twisted minds.