The FBI is trying to figure-out what makes serial killers tick in Netflix’s upcoming drama, Mindhunter.
Produced by David Fincher (who’s made two very good-to-great serial killer films: Se7en and Zodiac) and actress Charlize Theron (who won an Oscar for portraying serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster), Mindhunter will showcase the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, made famous by works like The Silence of the Lambs.
Netflix has released a clip from the show, depicting two FBI agents (played by Hamilton's Jonathan Groff and Lights Out's Holy McCallany) interviewing serial killers in 1979 with the hopes of understanding how to catch more.
The show’s synopsis reads, "How do we get ahead of crazy if we don't know how crazy thinks? Two FBI agents (portrayed by Groff and McCallany) set out on a sinister investigative odyssey to discover the brutal answers.”
The show is based off of Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, by Mark Olshaker and John E. Douglas. Douglas is a former Special Agent who created and headed the FBI's Criminal Profiling Program; he would later head the Investigative Support Unit, which, in the book, he says he named thusly to remove “the BS from what [he does].”
Douglas was also the model for Jack Crawford on The Silence of the Lambs, as well as other adaptations of the works of author Thomas Harris, including Red Dragon, Manhunter, and Hannibal.
The book itself makes for a compelling read, though it does occasionally delve dangerously close to pseudoscience. Criminal profiling remains a controversial investigative tool, but its popularity has been boosted somewhat by television shows and films.
Mindhunter will premiere in October on Netflix.
