Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer

Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer

Released: February 4 1994

• Director: Nick Broomfield
• Leading characters: Aileen Wuornos - herself, Arlene Pralle - herself, Nick Broomfield - himself, Steve Glazer - himself
• Documentary
• Rated R for for language and sexual references
• #852 on list

Filmmaker Nick Broomfield explores the troubled life and deadly end of female killer Aileen Wuornos. Filmed after Wuornos was imprisoned but before she was put to death, the documentary highlights the media blitz surrounding her case, culminating in interviews with Wuornos as well as her lawyer, her lover and her adoptive mother. * taken from Netflix

How do you review a documentary? You really cant since it's actual facts so I'll just describe Aileen's life and my feelings while watching the movie.

Aileen, also known as Lee, is said the be the first woman serial killer but really she's the first on record to kill by gun. Most women serial killers kill with poison (read this about one of the women who found poison as her method of choice) .
Lee had a hard life from the start, she was born to a mother who married at 15, divorced two years later and two months before Lee was born.
Lee never knew her father, he was a child molester and in prison at the time she was born and committed suicide when she was 13. When she was 4 her mother abandoned her and her brother, leaving then with her maternal grandparents who legally adopted them 2 months after her mother left.

Early on in her life Lee starting engaging in sexual acts with multiple partners, including her own brother. She became pregnant at 13, she claimed she was raped by an unknown man. She gave the boy up for adoption right after he was born.
Her grandmother died of liver failer when she was 15 and her grandfather kicked her out of his house. She then began supporting herself as a prostitute.

Throughout her life she was committing crimes and getting arrested. Just a small example of what she's done: She hit a 70-year-old man with his own cane, throwing a cue call at a bar tender's head, committed armed robbery, forged checks, and committed grand theft auto.

She was charged for murdering 7 men between 1989 to 1990. She claimed it was self defense but with her dark past I'm thinking she really did it.
While in prison Arlene Pralle, a born again christian, sprung up a friendship and then adopted the 31 year old. She said that she wanted her to be apart of her family and really cared for her but really I think she was in it for the money since the press were all over Lee's story. Arlene said that she wouldn't interview with Nick, the director, unless he pay her, her lawyer and Lee $10,000.
Steve the lawyer was just as shady. It would be a cold day in Hell before I let him be my lawyer. The first time we meet him in the movie he's sitting next to a creepy dummy that he made since he has imaginary friends, makes perfect sense doesn't it?
He's a failed musician and every chance he got he'd sing on camera, he never really cared how Lee was feeling, he just wanted to make sure he got his chunk of the money.

Arlene and Steve convinced Lee to confess to the murders to clear her soul for God. Lee did so thinking that if she did it wouldn't give the press any fuel for their movie wanting fires. It didn't matter since a movie was in the works anyway. Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story was put out in 1992.
The film ends with an interview with Lee trying to convince Nick to find the cops who were turning over their stories for movie rights. Nick later says that the cops Lee wanted him to see wont meet with him but they were all suspended from the force.

Curious to see what happened to Lee after the film I googled her story.  She petitioned the Florida Supreme Court for the right to fire her legal counsel and stop her appeals. She said, "I killed those men, robbed them as cold as ice. And I'd do it again, too. There's no chance in keeping me alive or anything, because I'd kill again. I have hate crawling through my system...I am so sick of hearing this 'she's crazy' stuff. I've been evaluated so many times. I'm competent, sane, and I'm trying to tell the truth. I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again." * wikipedia
In her last interview with Nick she claimed that her mind was being controlled by "sonic pressure" to make her seem crazy and said her coming death would be like being taken away be angels on a space ship.
Her last statement before her Lethal Injection on October 9 2002 was, "Yes, I would just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back, like Independence Day with Jesus. June 6, like the movie. Big mother ship and all, I'll be back, I'll be back." * wikipedia

There are a few books and movies out about Lee's life with the newest being the 2003 Movie Monster with Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci.

For review purposes I'd give the documentary 3 out of 5 star.