Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door (2024)

Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door Review

Plot

A teenager’s life in a quiet suburb changes drastically when John Wayne Gacy, a famed serial killer, becomes his neighbor. His curiosity leads to dark secrets and a frightening journey from innocence to a dire clash with evil.

GACY: SERIAL KILLER NEXT DOOR is a new crime thriller about one of America’s most twisted serial killers. It’s more “inspired by” than “based on” as it focuses on the clown element. Read our full Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door movie review here!

GACY: SERIAL KILLER NEXT DOOR is a new crime thriller about John Wayne Gacy. Or really, it can only boast about being inspired by his life and crimes. Saying “based on a true story” is grossly over-selling it.

It focuses more on the press gossip and headlines than the facts. A shame, as the true story is at least as shocking as what they’ve cooked up for this movie. Despite not being as bad as the trailer (which is terrible), it isn’t a good movie. Especially not for a movie supposedly dealing in a “true story” or “true crime”.

Continue reading our Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door movie review below. Out On-Demand and Digital from January 30, 2024.

John Wayne Gacy from a teen boy’s perspective

In Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door, we experience John Wayne Gacy from the perspective of a teenage boy. When Gacy moves into the house next door, the teenager’s life suddenly becomes much stranger.

This place is just too damn quiet for any kind of excitement but then John Wayne decides he wants to be Bobby’s neighbor! Our young protagonist has spent years staring at that hideous ghoul-face across their property line before anything happened. And Bobby noticed something strange about ole’ Johnny right off – every now and again some kid would go in but nobody’d see them come back out! He didn’t trust John Wayne Gacy one bit. Of course, being a child during the 1970s means Bobby’s parents won’t listen to him. He desperately tries talking to them about his fears but they just shush him and tell him not to speak ill of adults.

Mike Korich does an excellent job portraying the character – yes, “character” – of John Wayne Gacy in this film. I’ve always imagined Gacy as looking different (better) and having more charm than Mike does, but I’m willing to suspend disbelief for a good movie. And when he gets all evil and dark… Whoa!

There is probably some artistic license taken with the portrayal of this serial killer, though. In reality, Gacy was known as “The Killer Clown” because he performed in public as a clown before getting caught killing people. But from watching Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door you would think he dressed up like Bozo every time he went out hunting.

This movie makes it seem like John Wayne Gacy could put on full clown makeup in just seconds flat! We see that it takes forever in the opening scene…

This I know, and anyone that’s bothered to watch a documentary – or prefers facts over fiction – knows it too. You might think the people behind Gacy: The Killer Next Door should also know this. But they don’t care.

Yes, he did tricks he used while clowning, but dressing up as a clown wasn’t part of his M.O. in this movie. If you want to make this dark fairytale about John Wayne Gacy, at least acknowledge it’s a fairy tale by saying “inspired by” instead of “based on.”

Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door is not streaming on Netflix or Hulu at the time of writing this review.

Michael Feifer wrote and directed Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door which has many problems itself starting with claiming it’s “Based on the true story of America’s most twisted serial killer.” Gacy is one of them but can’t be called “America’s most” anything for sure.

Also calling him a “famed serial killer” in an official plot description is problematic as well. Infamous, yes. But calling him “famed” like it’s something positive when it was just the “Killer Clown” label? That ain’t right. Plus the killer clown thing was just to sell more newspapers.

If anything, it took away from the victims which is also something that this movie does not concentrate on. There is more fantasy about Gacy the Killer Clown and details about the family life of the teenage boy next door than any respect for victims in general let alone those specific individuals who were murdered by John Wayne Gacy himself.

The fact that runtime is only 97 minutes is good, but it could have been shorter because these murder scenes are virtually identical (and very much fiction rather than fact based). Mike Korich as Gacy is reason enough to watch this… In my book anyway.

Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door will be available On Demand and Digital from January 30, 2024.

Details

Written & Directed by: Michael Feifer

Cast: Ryker Baloun, Shelby Janes, Mason McNulty, Ashley Ray Keefe, John Omohundro

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