Review of "Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer" (2003) DVD

Nick Broomfield's documentary is a tragedy, a real-life story of horror, and a look at whether or not mentally incompetent inmates should be put to death.

Without seeing some other documentaries on "America's first female serial killer" Aileen Wuornos (whether it's Broomfield's first one on Aileen, The Selling of a Serial Killer; or another), this movie may leave you with some questions. Was Wuornos the child of incest? Who was the father of the child she bore at the age of 13? Was she really forced to live in the woods and sleep in the snow? How is it possible that a small, close-knit community could let such things happen to a child? It's undisputed that Wuornos was the victim of rape, mental torture, and incest (it's alleged that she slept with her brother and that her grandfather may also be her father). When the documentary unfolds, a clearly crazy Wournos emerges as a woman betrayed by everyone in her world.

While Broomfield attempts to shed some light on the questions at hand, it is assumed that you've seen his first movie and know of Wuornos's past before her first kill. This is good - it's not some filmmaker rehashing old news and just trying to cash in on his subject's demise (Wuornos was put to death in 2002 and Life and Death of a Serial Killer was released to theatres in 2003).

This film definitely works better on the small screen. I think the extreme close-ups of Wuornos's livid, bug-eyed face, filled with rage, would have been far too scary on the big screen! Like most serial killers, there is something just not quite right about Wuornos, which makes her strangely compelling and utterly watchable. One minute she is nice and calm, telling Broomfield that she loves him. The next she's ranting and screaming, veins bulging from her neck, middle finger in the air. The Wuornos who pulled the trigger that killed 7 men becomes plainly visible.

Luckily, there are breaks from the riveting interviews with Wuornos; she is too intense to watch for more than a few minutes at a time. There are interviews with Wuornos's best friend Dawn; a cross-dresser who knew her "when"; and even with her mother, who claims that a breech birth may have caused Aileen brain damage. There is also some interesting footage featuring Broomfield after being subpoenaed to appear in court during one of Wuornos' appeals, showing unedited scenes from his first documentary. These were used to discredit the woman's hippie, druggie lawyer at the time of her 1992 conviction.

As the interviews progress, the last one coming just days before she was put to death, you see the disintegration of a human being. In the last interview with Broomfield, she is obviously clinically paranoid as she screams about law enforcement, who she believed let her kill those men so they could make her into a serial killer (that way, they would be able to sell her story for big money). She also claimed that the government was controlling her mind through radio waves, that the guards were trying to poison her, and worse. After she was put to death, her final words were read to reporters - words that talk about the spaceships coming to take her home. (Jeb Bush the Governor of Florida, and three psychiatrists, all deemed Wuornos mentally fit to be executed.)

Alieen: Life & Death of a Serial Killer is being released in tandem with the 2003 film, Monster (starring Charlize Theron in an Oscar-winning turn). Excellent idea, as both films are not only worth watching, they're worth watching together.