Copycat Killers

Copycat Killers takes a narrow and unsettling angle on true crime: murders committed by people who had fixed on a film, a legend or a fictional character. The episode titles make the premise plain. 'The Omen', 'Queen Of The Damned', 'Slender Man', 'Lizzie Borden' and 'American Horror Story' read like a list of horror touchstones. Forensic psychologist Dr. J. Buzz Von Ornsteiner hosts. The show is a Podcast One production of Reelz Channel's true crime program, and its television origins are easy to hear. Episodes open with a warning about graphic violence that still addresses viewers, and the closing lines point to a TV version with reenactments and crime scene photos. In audio, that becomes a blend of narration, acted dialogue and interview voices. The narration runs dramatic, with lines like 'this time, he won't be stopped' pushing each story forward. The cases span decades and places. In 'The Omen', an Oklahoma teenager named Sean drifts toward Satanism, grows alienated from his mother and stepfather, and reconnects with an old friend, Richard, who is drawn into his stories. The episode's close measures him against the film's Damien, whose control and power he wanted for himself. 'Slender Man' goes back to May 31, 2014, in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, where two middle school friends, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser, committed a violent crime under the spell of an internet legend. It spends time on the myth itself and on the girls' mix of worship and terror. 'Queen Of The Damned' follows Alan, who had watched the vampire film at least a hundred times, and his friend Thomas McCandrick, who had started mocking it by December 2002. In 'Lizzie Borden', James Cushing, whose favorite movie was The Legend of Lizzie Borden, finds an axe left in a neighbor's yard in the summer of 1990. 'American Horror Story' turns on Brittany, her beloved grandfather Robert Whitwell, and a box in his shed holding his life savings. Across these stories the real subject is fixation: repeated viewings, isolation, a need to prove oneself to an invented figure. The show treats that fixation as the thing to explain, and its closing passages deliver a judgment. One compares James to Lizzie Borden for their shared lack of empathy. Another concludes that Alan was, at bottom, a killer. The feed also carries 'BONUS: I Lived With A Killer from Real Crime: The Reelz Files', which turns to Drew Peterson and his son Steven. Graphic violence, young perpetrators and occult material come up again and again, so this is not easy listening.