The Hunt for the BTK Killer (2005) Reviews

• Pretty good; Henry met the challenge

  vchimpanzee2005-10-20

  As the movie opens, Dennis Rader has been arrested for his string of killings over a period of many years in Wichita, Kansas. Through flashbacks, we see the events leading up to his capture, as well as some of the murders. Gregg Henry had a very challenging role, and in my opinion, he delivered. Dennis Rader was shown as very normal at times, a kind and caring person. In fact, he was so normal the background music made me think of ice cream trucks. Then he was shown as cruel and unfeeling, but not in a situation necessarily related to any murders. Where the murders were planned, Rader was depicted as quite demented and somehow controlled by an unknown force, with background music appropriate to the situation and sometimes so weird it could not even be called music. After his arrest, Rader described what he had done with almost no emotion, as if explaining how he remodeled a house or something, though sometimes he bordered on demented in describing his actions. He seemed to show no remorse, despite being an upstanding member of the community. I am assuming Henry was able to work with footage or good memories to create his impressions of Rader in custody. The murders were quite scary because of the special editing and visual effects, which may have made them look less graphic but certainly added to the horror of what took place. Robert Forster did a very capable job as Jason Madiga, a detective on the case. According to what I have read about the case, he was not a real person, but that does not matter. His performance, and the efforts to solve the case, make the movie worthwhile almost as much as Henry's performance. It was a better than average fact-based TV movie.

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• For a TV Movie, this was actually very good

  trublu2152013-06-23

  I caught this on Netflix and was surprised by how good it was, namely due to Henry's performance as Dennis Rader. I wasn't too into it in the beginning after hearing the usually great Robert Foster deliver a horrible line to a reporter. However, I overlooked it and bared through it which I'm glad I did. The film does not portray any of the killings and focuses on the actual hunt for the BTK killer which actually worked for the film because it gives the audience an even more uneasy feel watching Dennis Rader pick and choose his next potential victims. The film's greatness exists in Henry's performance. The performance is so controlled and hinders on the brink of a violent breakdown that as an audience member, you can't help but get the chills when you see him on screen. The film does have it's flaws, between horrendous acting from some actors and some campy and cheesy dialog it still screams TV movie. However, for a TV movie, this is pretty damn good. Let's put it this way, for a regular theater movie, this would be a 4/10 easily. For a TV movie, 8/10.

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• Informative and Compelling True to Life TV Movie

  Bob_the_Hobo2012-05-04

  Dennis Rader went decades living as the BTK Killer (stands for Hunt, Torture, Kill), with his final amount murder list will probably never be known for sure. "The Hunt for the BTK Killer" follows Rader, played by Gregg Henry, and Detective Magida, Robert Forster, the man responsible for taking him down. This is a very good true to life television film. The story is for the most part correct, and while I don't know if there was a Det. Magida (or if that was the Detective's name) the police investigation kept me interested as to exactly how BTK was caught. Rader's kills are presented in a creepy and fascinating way. Overall the script is tight and consistently keeps your attention. Henry and Forster are really the only characters that are given much depth, but those two are the only ones that need it. The script typecasts Forster's Magida as your usual cop, he's an older gumshoe working with a beautiful younger actress as partner. Henry does a fantastic job as Rader, his interviews at the end are creepy and award-worthy. There is a voice-over narration by Forster that guides the film, which I suspect was brought in afterwards to tie up loose ends. In any other case, I would drop the quality down for using the worst tool in the business, but here it actually enlightened about Rader instead of insulting the viewer's intelligence. If you're interested in BTK, or serial killer media in general, this one is worth a watch.

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• Excellent portrayal of an egomaniac serial killer

  Ed-Shullivan2013-11-11

  The Hunt for the BTK Killer (the initials BTK stand for serial killer Dennis Rader's monogram Bind, Torture and Kill), which Rader signed on most of the taunting communications he sent to the police and various media outlets over a 30 year period. This made for TV movie is based on the true account of Dennis Rader, a serial killer from Witchita, Kansas. He was responsible for the murder of at least 10 people over the 17 year period between 1974 and 1991. Rader then somehow stopped his murderous ways for more than 13 years. It is believed that he took exception to a television show narrated by David Lohr on Court TV on the BTK killer, and also to writer/lawyer Robert Beattie's book released in 2005. Rader said that he chose to resurface in 2004 because he wanted his story to be told by himself. Gregg Henry's performance as serial killer Dennis Rader was uncanny. I recall first watching Gregg Henry as a young actor as Wesley Jordache in the 1976 mini-series Rich Man Poor Man. From that first performance on the small screen he has went on to an endless and varied stream of television and big screen performances. The lead investigator Detective Jason Magida was played by one of my favorite actors Robert Forster (best known for Jackie Brown). This story is outlined in a quasi documentary style that commences with the actual arrest of Dennis Rader in his vehicle. The movie then takes us through some of the actual events and Rader's murders, as narrated through the interrogation of Dennis Rader when he was first arrested. What this movie does well is it outlines how Dennis Rader was able to elude capture for so long (over 30 years) as his murders were sporadic, and then he just simply stopped killing and sending any further taunting communications signed BTK. Gregg Henry looked and acted quite similar to the real serial killer Dennis Rader. The movie may not appeal to all movie enthusiasts as it focuses more on the events surrounding how Dennis Rader was actually captured. I would say that his capture was a combination of sound police work, and Dennis Rader's ego not willing to let anyone else glean any notoriety due to his infamy, which forced him to come out again and start taunting police. What he did not realize was that over the past 13 years when his killings had stopped, the world of technology was advancing rapidly and the police sciences were also ahead of the criminal curve. This TV movie provides insight in to the mental instability of serial killer Dennis Rader and his intense need for acknowledgement through the media for his murderous crimes known under the monogram as the elusive BTK serial killer. His actual court "matter of fact" confession is still available today on youtube for those of you that are interested in evaluating Gregg Henry's uncanny portrayal of Dennis Rader. Rader's court confession is told as if he were making dinner or calmly putting on his coat, not outlined as the actuality of his having sexual fantasies of killing people and then living out his fantasies by plotting and then committing these heinous crimes. On closing, Dennis Rader tells the police and the judge that there were many people who are very lucky to be alive today due to unforeseen circumstances that did not allow him to execute some of the murders that he had planned.

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• Paranoia versus pride

  Dr_Coulardeau2009-04-11

  This is a documentary, a true story, a true criminal. A serial killer who had gone rampant or even silent for thirty years or so is titillated one day by some intellectual who is vain enough to do some research on his case. And that is enough to wake him up from his slumber and he will make one mistake that will bring him out, that is to say to court and ten prison sentences for his ten murders. A silly mistake indeed, a mistake caused by his ignorance of the modern world, of the computer he is using, and he will send a floppy disk, or diskette, to the police out of his great vanity and that floppy disk will reveal the identity of the author and the address of the computer on which it was last used. It is true he was a bad speller and he was a D+ and C- student at college. Never trust computers and believe they are mute and silent when you turn them off. They go on talking and telling things. This film is only interesting in the fact it reveals the immense self-satisfied pride of this serial killer, of maybe most serial killers. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID

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