Exploitative true crime at its finest and worst

HBO Max’s The Staircase is like staring into an infinity mirror of true crime. The extra you watch it, the extra idly transfixed you turn out to be by the phantasm — and concurrently perplexed by its existence within the first place.

Fascinating, nauseating, and a slog all of sudden, the 2022 true crime drama starring Colin Firth and Toni Collette shouldn’t be confused with the wildly standard 2004 documentary sequence of the identical title that this fictionalized present is predicated on. It additionally shouldn’t be confused with the unique docuseries’ sequel, The Staircase II, or any of the numerous re-releases over the previous twenty years throughout numerous networks and platforms — the most recent being Netflix’s 2018 13-episode model combining all beforehand launched footage with a pair hours’ value of updates.

Clearly audiences (and the TV execs vying for our consideration) merely can not get sufficient of Michael Peterson’s story.

Again in 2001, the rich novelist’s privileged life was very publicly shattered after being accused of brutally murdering his spouse Kathleen of their ritzy North Carolina mansion. The trial dominated information cycles, as prosecutors insisted that the surprising carnage of the scene unequivocally proved Michael’s guilt, whereas he (and most of their youngsters) insisted it was only a horrible freak accident.

The documentary gave viewers an intimate, all-access entrance row seat to Peterson’s protection crew, and the trial’s shattering impact on a grieving household pressured to carry out for the media circus. However the fictionalized sequence provides a layer of meta-commentary that renders each the prosecution crew and the French documentarians (one in every of whom truly turned enamored with Peterson) as central characters within the story.

By incorporating the filming of this standard piece of true crime media into the plot itself, 2022’s The Staircase goals to ask lofty questions concerning the nature of reality, fiction, and narrative within the American felony justice system. It is as navel-gazey as this new crop of “elevated” true crime subgenres will get, with a puzzlingly pseudo-intellectual tagline that proclaims “There may be No Fact With out Lies.”

To name The Staircase a “true crime traditional” is to precisely describe the whole dehumanization course of that each single real-life individual linked to this terrible loss of life underwent throughout their a long time within the public eye. However the HBO Max dramatization seems like the ultimate stage of this tragedy-exploitation machine. It not solely reduces Kathleen, Michael, and their youngsters (one in every of whom is performed by Recreation of Thrones‘ Sophie Turner) into literal fictional characters for our leisure consumption, however even provides colourful new personalities like real-life prosecutor Freda Black (portrayed by the inimitable Parker Posey).

It is uniquely grotesque to look at this star-studded forged re-enact the well-worn story beats of this brutal case, particularly due to how their immense skills can flip these IRL folks into such compelling characters. The present additionally goes to painstaking lengths to recreate each single blood-soaked second of Kathleen’s ultimate agonizing moments of life—not simply as soon as, however a pair instances. Collette makes use of all her horror-acting chops to essentially promote us on each painful loss of life rattle within the two completely different variations of Kathleen’s loss of life posited by the murder investigators and Michael’s protection crew.

There are even heavy-handed winks to the digital camera to highlight what one can solely describe as “easter eggs” for “followers” of this traditional true-crime did-he-dunnit case. Greater than as soon as, teasing introductions to key items of heavily-debated proof and hints on the speculative theories about this particular human being’s loss of life are deployed for nice dramatic impact. Apart from the grossness of all of it, it raises the query of who this sequence is even for. There is not lots of new stuff to be gleaned from Hollywood giving the 20-year-old documentary a fictionalized glow-up, however on the similar time the present is written in a method that assumes you understand every little thing concerning the case already.

Whereas reviewers solely obtained 5 out of the eight complete episodes, it is clear that the notorious “owl idea” will quickly come into play too, as evidenced by the abundance of chicken imagery and a few not-so-subtle strains sprinkled all through. For these out-of-the-loop, the “owl idea” is a type of preposterous alternate hypotheses normalized as we speak by so-called on-line sleuths who submit theories about true crime circumstances to Reddit and TikTok. Like these newbie web sleuths, the filmmakers do not appear very concerned about interrogating the immorality of treating real-world victims like they’re a part of a homicide thriller sport.

Whereas the present purports to ask vital questions on this twisted human impulse that fuels the true crime phenomenon, it delights far an excessive amount of in sensationalizing Kathleen’s mysterious loss of life to say something of worth. Most of the time, it comes throughout as essentially the most disturbing live-action dramatization of Clue: The Actual True Crime Story Version. The place was Kathleen murdered? Why, on the staircase, in fact! However was it with the fireside poker or sleeping capsules combined with just a few glasses of wine? Who killed Kathleen on the staircase, with both the fireside poker or an unintentional fall? Why, it will probably solely be Mr. Peterson himself — or that pesky Mr. Owl!

2022’s The Staircase clearly desires to take a web page out of Ryan Murphy’s The Folks vs. OJ Simpson, although, by calling consideration to how American society elides the humanity of victims to placed on a very good efficiency of justice within the courtroom. At finest, although, it is solely a poor, self-serious imitation of what made that present worthwhile. There’s far much less model, cultural relevance, thoughtfulness, and sensitivity towards the family members who nonetheless survive these IRL victims and should relive the trauma each time we determine to pull their corpses again onto that public stage for “enjoyable.”

Hear, I do not say any of this from atop an ethical excessive horse. I can also’t faux that The Staircase did not finally hook me a few instances. Like so many others, I am a bonafide true crime bottom-feeder. If The Staircase (in all its iterations) embodies exploitative true crime trashiness, then I’m its rubbish disposal — guzzling the regurgitated human blood from the identical circumstances of violent human tragedy over and over.

In case you’re on the lookout for solutions about this case and even the bigger moral conundrums of the true-crime style, you will not discover it in HBO Max’s The Staircase. However on the subject of true crime fodder, it is a retelling positive to feed different murder-loving goblins like myself.