By this point, we’re all familiar with the Steven Avery case. The case of a man once falsely accused who went on to become a murderer. Hence, the Netflix documentary series “Making a Murderer”. So, what happens when two filmmakers take this inspiration and sprinkle in a little bit of Borat? We get Faking a Murderer. Coming from the minds of Stu Stone and Adam Rodness, check out the synopsis of this hybrid between true-crime documentary/mockumentary.
Faking a Murderer follows two filmmakers on their noble yet perhaps misguided quest to track down a seedy-looking stranger they’ve discovered online who — in a disturbing video — seemingly confesses to a murder. Or at least that’s what they think. Seeing the popularity of true crime shows, they decide to try and turn this discovery into their own killer hit. With the support (both moral and financial) of a distributor, Stuart Stone and Adam Rodness set off on their journey to try and track down this elusive creep. When they bring the video to law enforcement, they’re told — repeatedly — that it’s really not much to go on, and they’re putting a lot of time and energy into what essentially is a fool’s errand. Determined to make this work, they flex, stretch, and break their budget in pursuit of a hit new crime story, but are they in over their heads?
Why It Works
I never thought that the idea of Borat – a film where we [the viewers] knew it was fake, but those involved didn’t – would inspire someone to make a true-crime version of it. However, with the world’s obsession (mine included) with true crime documentaries and creepy ARG videos on YouTube, this feels like the perfect result. When I found out that Stone and Rodness were able to actually pull this off, I felt like I had a much better time watching this film.
I’m a huge fan of watching ARG’s (Alternate Reality Games) and channels like Nexpo and Nick Crowley. So, watching this film where Stone and Rodness explore a creepy YouTube channel and try to “crack the case” seems so realistic. You’ve probably watched the Netflix documentary about Elisa Lam, where the internet did and still behaves like sleuths/detectives, grasping at clues to solve the case. It was an incredibly meta-story and it was incredibly cool that they were able to pull this off.
How They Pulled It Off
What’s pretty incredible about this film is that, as Stone says “we roped everyone in to help the narrative of the movie”. So, while Stone and Rodness had an idea of where they wanted to go with it, they got their family, friends, and even police to believe their story was real. So, the narrative of the movie is as organic as it gets. It’s more than just improv – it’s real-life reactions.
How were they able to pull this off? Stone revealed that a month prior, they made a bunch of videos on YouTube with actor Tony Nappo to help sell the idea of a creepy criminal who was going unseen on YouTube – committing crimes. Just to reiterate – Nappo is an actor and any videos he was in were scripted.
Rating: 3.5/5
Faking a Murderer is out now on Video On Demand and Digital.
Check out my interview with the filmmakers below:
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