Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman – Netflix Review (1/5)

AILEEN WUORNOS: AMERICAN BOOGEYWOMAN on Netflix is really not worth watching. It’s both wildly inaccurate and plays out like a soap opera. Watch Monster (2003) or any Aileen Wuornos documentary instead. Read our full American Boogeywoman movie review here!

AILEEN WUORNOS: AMERICAN BOOGEYWOMAN is a new Netflix addition. It’s a horror, thriller, drama hybrid that simply is not worth your time. It’s wildly speculative (if not downright inaccurate). However, the filmmakers get around this by using the good old “Inspired by true events” description.

The actors work with ungrateful material, so I can’t even blame them. Well, no, I can blame Tobin Bell (Jigsaw) for even taking part in it. Surely, he can get a better job than this. Overall, it feels extremely soapy and exploitative.

Continue reading our American Boogeywoman movie review below.

Boogeyman and Boogeywoman of America?!

Also, the fact that there was also made an “American Boogeyman” about Ted Bundy by the same writer/director just does not sit well with me. Having Ted Bundy and Aileen Wuornos in the same category in any way is just f*cked up in my book. Sure, both are convicted serial killers, but their motives and actions are wildly different.

One hunted down his victims as a predator. The other had lived a terrible life since being born and killed those who sought her out as a prostitute.

For the record, I am not saying Aileen Wuornos was innocent. She killed several men (and admitted as much) but at least some of the murders seem to have been actual self-defense. And she never went out hunting for victims in the way Ted Bundy did.

WATCH THIS TED BUNDY STORY INSTEAD

The Netflix movie about Ted Bundy is very historically accurate in most ways >

They did both end their lives in Florida executed as serial killers. So I guess they do have that in common. Also, both American Boogeyman/Boggeywoman movies have a rating on IMDb under 4, which seems very accurate.

Classic Hollywood casting – in the worst way!

If you’ve ever seen a picture of Aileen Wuornos, you’ll know that she didn’t really look anything like Peyton List does in American Boogeywoman. Then again, Ted Bundy definitely did not look like Chad Michael Murray does in American Boogeyman either.

Now, you might think “Well, come on now, Charlize Theron and Zac Efron don’t look like those two either!” And you’d be right, of course. However, both also changed their appearance to try and match the look of Aileen Wuornos and Ted Bundy respectively.

In Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman they seem to want to sell the whole “sexy serial killer”-angle. So, they tell a story from her youth and cast a young Disney-famous star. Again, not one bad word about Peyton List. She is still at the beginning of her career as an adult, serious actor. I get it! More power to her.

I do not, however, understand why Tobin Bell wants to take part in this shit show (pardon my French). Again, the same goes for Chad Michael Murray and Holland Roden (No Escape) who co-starred in American Boogeyman. Surely, taking on these roles is not a way to build up a solid career. Cash, sure, but for their career. Ooof!

You can find American Boogeywoman on Netflix now!

Daniel Farrands is the writer and director of Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman. Just as he was on Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman. As a director, he has focused on documentaries a lot. Or rather, first he did documentaries about famous horror movies.

In more recent years, Daniel Farrands has turned to direct feature films based on real-life tragedies. The two movies mentioned above and also The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019) and The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson (2019). Always with rather big (or buzz-worthy) names in the lead roles.

In other words, he’s building a career on exploiting the tragic life (and death) events of real-life people. And people must watch them since they keep coming. In spite of his 2019 movies having IMDb ratings under 3 and people clearly loathe them.

I would wholeheartedly recommend that you avoid this one on Netflix. Watch Monster (2003) by Patty Jenkins, starring Charlize Theron in her Academy Award-winning role, a thousand times instead. Or, you could check out one of the many documentaries about Aileen Wuornos.

There’s even an episode in the new Netflix docu-series Catching Killers that’s about her. That really isn’t one of the better documentary productions, but it’s still better than this movie.

DO CHECK OUT

Our Season 1 review of the Netflix true-crime documentary series Catching Killers her >

Finally, you can just search for “Aileen Wuornos” on YouTube and find plenty of coverage and interviews with her from before she was executed. An execution she herself ended up expediting because she had simply had enough of this world that had never shown her much joy.

If it sounds like I’m feeling sorry for her, then that would be accurate. However, that still does not mean I can (or want to) excuse her actions. Nor can I excuse this movie for continuing to misuse and abuse her!

Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman is out on Netflix in the US and UK from January 21, 2022. Also, you can watch it On-Demand in most countries worldwide, though I would not recommend paying to watch this.

Details

Director: Daniel Farrands
Writer: Daniel Farrands
Stars: Peyton List, Tobin Bell, Lydia Hearst, Swen Temmel, Nick Vallelonga, Meadow Williams, Andrew Biernat, Ashley Atwood, Christa Collins, Christopher Corbin, Joseph Schwartz, Ben Smith-Petersen, Leslie Stratton