Once I had met Gil, I was like now I gotta sit down with [detective] Frank Salerno and see what kind of guy that is. Tiller Russell directs the series who is previously known for producing on Chicago P.D. ‘Shadow in the Cloud’ Ending Explained: What Happens in Chloë Grace Moretz’s Sci-Fi Movie? Netflix is taking a look into one of the most chilling true crime cases of the last 50 years, the case of The Night Stalker. Netflix series chronicles how 2 detectives hunted down the Night Stalker in the 1980s. 786, This story has been shared 660 times. Weirdly, part of (why we don’t talk about this case more) is I don’t think the definitive telling of the story had ever happened. NETFLIX © 2021 Continuing with the true-crime documentaries, Netflix’s latest docu-series is on the notorious serial killer, Richard Ramirez, otherwise known as the Night Stalker, which premiers January 13th. The way I make non-fiction films is completely immersive, 360 in its storytelling. 823, This story has been shared 786 times. Then the movie will be right after that. The unlikely pair who had to sift through the clues were Gil Carrillo, a young and outgoing detective, and his taciturn mentor, the legendary investigator Frank Salerno. He spoke to Variety shortly before “The Night Stalker” premiered on Netflix on Jan. 13. Russell directed The Seven Five, a … You get the science and the emotion with one subject, which is rare. Netflix's 'Sons of Sam': Investigator Maury Terry Obsessed Over Every Detail—Including His Style, Stream It Or Skip It: 'The Sons Of Sam' On Netflix, About One Man's Obsession With Getting The Truth About The Son Of Sam Case, Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, Tawny Kitaen Dies at 59: R.I.P. It was such a rich canvas to paint on and be able to evoke. Netflix 'Night Stalker' docu-series director focused on the cops and survivors and not Richard Ramirez to avoid glamorizing the murderer. This is likely the next chapter of the story, and I guess we’ll see what comes next. In a weird way, I’m starting to recognize — though it was never a conscious choice — that it’s kind of all the same movie. There are different names like the Walk-In Killer, the Valley Intruder. The crimes were scattered across the city. Russell spoke to Decider about what draws him to stories of troubling police work and why he believes this horrific killer isn’t discussed more often. For me, those guys are in my prayers at night because they are a force of good in the world. Those seem to be the stories that I’m magnetized to because they are humanity at its most extreme. 454, This story has been shared 421 times. Night Stalker does indeed pose basic questions like every other serial killer doc (i.e. Looking for a new Netflix series to binge or the best movies to watch on Amazon Prime? 523, This story has been shared 482 times. They were men. Netflix's docuseries Night Stalker tries to avoid glamorizing the serial killer Richard Ramirez, but it doesn't go far enough. Would you like to sit down with this guy?” I immediately said yes, of course, and when I sat down and connected with Gil, that was when I saw, “OK, it’s the character that’s the way in.” What was interesting is that at every step of the way, the character is always the way in. RUSSELL: A distribution deal is being closed now, and it will likely debut Q1 of next year after my Netflix series premieres in January. 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You spend a long time letting people know that you’re going to honor their story and tell it in a nuanced and respectful way. At the time it became this media sensation and obsession because of the universality of that fear. Unlimited movies sent to your door, starting at $7.99 a month. One is, when I first sat down with [detective] Gil Carrillo at this knock-around, old school Los Angeles bar and restaurant, he began to tell the story of that summer and what it was like for him to be working this case. So, it’s important to look at this story through the lens and within the context that it took place and not kind of judge it with 2020 lenses or with the cultural context of what’s happening today. They can be viewed as just a statistic of somebody else’s depredations. 482, This story has been shared 454 times. All of it is one thing, in some core, fundamental way. Better known as the Night Stalker, Ramirez cut a deadly swath through the “city of angels,” killing 13 people, while sexually assaulting, burglarizing and attempting to murder many more. Rather it captures those hard emotions while painstakingly detailing the investigation that led to Ramirez’s arrest. Everyone had their own branding and then one day everyone woke up and there’s the headline and it says, the Night Stalker. 'SNL' Recap: Controversy Magnet Elon Musk Pumps Dogecoin, But The Market Hit The Brakes, 'Mare of Easttown' Episode 3 Recap: Good Cop, Bad Cop, The Cast and Creators of 'Mare of Easttown' Really Are That Obsessed with Wawa, The 7 Sexiest Moments in 'Shadow and Bone', 'Shadow and Bone' Season 2: Wylan, Nikolai, and More Characters to Look Out For, 'The Circle's' Lee Swift Is Proud to Be an Example for Gays of All Generations, 'The Circle' UK Needs to Stream on Netflix Right Now. Tiller Russell writes and directs the feature based on the Dead End on Silk Road by David Kushner and the real-life events surrounding the undercover takedown story of … Directed by Tiller Russell. Even though we all know the name, nobody had ever really done that immersive, definitive telling of it. What draws you to these kinds of projects? That’s another thing I wanted to ask you, as a fellow true crime obsessive. Relatively quickly into the conversation he told the story of what it was like to interview on a case where a child was abducted and abused and miraculously is still alive and able to tell her story. It was a language and an environment that I was in some way comfortable with and interested in chronically. If you really want to talk about what happened, fly to Africa and meet me for a cup of coffee tomorrow.” Yester He put Los Angeles and San Francisco in a state of complete terror. Short of a war-time setting, it’s kind of the most extreme and compressed amount of drama that you see. The Operation Odessa documentary, from director Tiller Russell, claims that Tony made a million dollars in his first year of selling cocaine. There was no reason or consistency to The Night Stalker’s crimes. I think everybody is aware of that at this point. They were people of different races and socio-economic backgrounds. What she told him was “I’m going to do this so that what happens to me never happens to another little girl.” I am choking up just thinking about it. Tiller Russell on Netflix This is a regularly updated list with movies, series and documentaries with Tiller Russell on Netflix. The next phase of it is the sort of crazy, surreal, circus-like trial that happened, where suddenly this hideous creature is turned into this celebrity rock star, sex-symbol by the media in the courtroom. That’s my world, that’s what I do, and obviously this was an iconic and notorious story that was out there. There was a random nature to the murders that made it hard for law enforcement to realize that it was possible for one person to be doing all of this. © Copyright 2021 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. Directed by Tiller Russell. Russell, who recently wrote and directed the movie Silk Road, about darkweb market creator Ross Ulbricht, is no stranger to Netflix and TV. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. And yet no one had done the definitive, multi-part telling of it. Yet, at the same time, this story in particular took place 35 years ago. He killed and committed crimes with little rhyme or reason. I’m thinking of The Last Narc and The Seven Five especially. According to director Tiller Russell, it was important for him to prioritize the investigation and the perspectives of the lead detectives. Directed by Tiller Russell, the 2021 Netflix docuseries explores a series of 1985 murders in California, and how the media created the "Night Stalker" persona - yet the four episodes barely look beyond the case evidence to explore the bigger picture. Hollywood Netflix series chronicles how 2 detectives hunted down the Night Stalker in the 1980s. ©2021 Netflix, Inc. ... Tiller Russell: It was a very conscious decision early on. Tiller Russell is the director of the new feature film "Silk Road," and Netflix's limited documentary series "Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer". You should come meet the chef. There is an amazing lineage of L.A. crime stories and L.A noirs dating back to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett all the way through James Ellroy and more contemporary stuff. Tiller Russell, the director of the four-part series, says getting them to open up about cracking the case, as well as convincing the survivors and victims’ families that the show would honor the memories of their loved ones, was the greatest challenge he faced. This is a small but telling detail. This should give you a decent idea of how the protagonists of this Tiller-Russell-directed documentary roll. So, the story has many life cycles and then eventually disappears, [he] isn’t executed, and sort of fades away via death by natural causes. David Holthouse has directed and/or produced documentaries including Night Stalker, The Last Narc, We Up: Indigenous Hip-Hop of the Circumpolar North, Lorena, Operation Odessa, Active Shooter: America, Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies, and The Seven Five Here was somebody who was under the cover of night invading the sanctity of their homes and taking people’s lives. That makes a lot of sense. 341. Michael Dowd stole money and … He was operating completely without an M.O. I always just hope that people will watch and find it gripping, compelling, moving, and hopefully nuanced and complex. They were this odd couple pairing. 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If you didn’t live it, if you weren’t there, you’re not in the movie. Operation Odessa is the crazy true story of how the FBI, Pablo Escobar, and the Russian Mafia were played by three criminal outsiders in a $35 million submarine deal. So it's not surprising that the director gravitated to the story of Enrique Camarena, an undercover agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration who was abducted, tortured and murdered by drug lords while on assignment in Mexico in 1985. 654, This story has been shared 598 times. When Will 'The Circle' Season 3 Premiere on Netflix? Cr. Tiller Russell recently explained the importance of not glamourising Richard Ramirez Credit: ET canada What's on Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime? The Seven Five, Operation Odessa, The Last Narc, The Night Stalker. We only revealed what they knew when they knew it. Today, another limited series arrives on Netflix this time looking into one notorious serial killer and two detectives’ efforts to stop him. These are the words of Tiller Russell, the director of Netflix's new four-part docuseries “Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer,” who spoke to SFGATE about the project. At the time, I was writing for a Dick Wolf TV show [‘Chicago Fire’] and a fellow writer and friend Tim Walsh came in with me and said he just sat down with the homicide detective who worked the Night Stalker case and he thought there might be an amazing documentary there. Here’s where to watch the 2021 movie directed by Tiller Russell. The Seven Five, also known as Seven Five Precinct, is a 2014 documentary directed by Tiller Russell, and produced by Eli Holzman, Aaron Saidman, and Sheldon Yellen.The film looks at police corruption in the 75th precinct of the New York Police Department during the 1980s. The truth of the matter is Frank and Gil and what these guys did, those guys were a force of good in the world and that is an incredibly complex, challenging, impossible, heartbreaking, and difficult job that those guys were doing — and thankless in many ways. You’ve got this young buck from the streets, new to homicide, Latino guy, and then you’ve got the old school legendary homicide cop who worked the Hillside Strangler. 3,416, This story has been shared 1,980 times. It’s a great question and one of the most important questions that we can ask right because we are at an absolute moment of cultural reckoning. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! From June of 1984 to August of 1985, he haunted California. Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is a riveting four-part docu-series on Richard Ramirez. Decider: Your work as a whole deals with taking a hard look at law enforcement. 598, This story has been shared 523 times. So, at the end of the day, I hope that my stories ask questions rather than answer them because it’s a discussion that’s fostered and thoughts that are provoked. 'Girl from Nowhere' Is Your Weird Watch of the Week, Stream It Or Skip It: 'Jupiter's Legacy' On Netflix, Where A Group Of Aging Superheroes Are Unsure Of Passing The Torch To Their Kids, 'Jeopardy' Contestant Roasted for Wildly Incorrect "Calzone" Answer, Is 'All American' On Tonight? Why am I as a filmmaker drawn to this story? So what perspective do you want to anchor it in? Why are you interested in writing about it? In a weird way, we are all a part of the story by giving it our attention and focus. Directed by Tiller Russell. 43,917, This story has been shared 3,416 times. With this one it was a very conscious choice for a couple of reasons. This particular story has had this weird and surreal kind of almost circus-like aftermath. As someone who spends their entire professional career sifting around crime stories, it was, of course, a story that I knew. They were children. We wanted to treat those people as people. The murder weapons were different. There was this weird afterlife that Richard Ramirez had and still has. Tiller Russell: I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and my father was in the DA’s office that was depicted in Errol Morris’s film The Thin Blue Line. This is a story of iconic cops chasing an iconic killer in an iconic city. That was incredibly important to us not to fall prey to his false and corrupting and dangerous myth. Children, the elderly, men, women, random bystanders, and targeted households: He murdered, tortured, and raped them all. He told of when he was with her and picked her up and took her to the precinct to go and ID Ramirez in the lineup. That summer in L.A. everybody felt like it could be me, it could be my kid, it could be my grandmother that goes next. Tyler Hersko Apr 27, 2020 10:30 pm What Time Does 'Cruel Summer' Episode 4 Air on Freeform and Hulu? Yester gave an exclusive interview to Russell in an airport hangar in an undisclosed location. Watch Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer on Netflix, This story has been shared 43,917 times. Who Voices Maury Terry on Netflix’s 'Sons of Sam'? Seeing those two sides to him made him such a riveting character. Ramirez was a killer who was unprecedented in criminal history. So I was aware of it, but it’s always driven by character. Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC. It’s a crisis in the failure of policing that requires radical and categorical change, effective immediately. So, was it Gil Carrillo that drove you to explore The Night Stalker case or were you already looking into it and then you found him? Why do you think that is? Operation Odessa is the crazy true story of how the FBI, Pablo Escobar, and the Russian Mafia were played by three criminal outsiders in a $35 million submarine deal. 660, This story has been shared 654 times. 'Mare of Easttown' Episode 4: What Happened to Katie Bailey? So, he kind of dragged me around with him when I was a kid to all the jails and the courthouse and the precincts. The name, the headline, the kind of top-line legacy to it. An editor friend of mine once told me — and I’ve always really taken this to heart — he said, “Interesting is the enemy of compelling.” Interesting means you’re intellectually engaged. Why is the audience interested in watching something on it? A huge amount of trust needs to be garnered and won long before you ever end up on a set with cameras rolling. These were pattern-less killings. Tiller Russell on KCRW. She was so self-possessed and empowered and committed to doing it. With Mike Dowd, Ken Eurell, Walter Yurkiw, Chickie. Tiller Russell's new documentary will examine the murder of agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, which was dramatized in "Narcos: Mexico" Season 1. To 'Bachelor Party' Star, Whitesnake Video Vixen, Seth Rogen Is Done Working With James Franco After Sexual Misconduct Allegations. That is a product of the Night Stalker. I’ve always enjoyed your work because it’s always more about the crime than the criminal. I thought what a gift from the cinema gods. Yet, we don’t talk about The Night Stalker that often. This should give you a decent idea of how the protagonists of this Tiller-Russell-directed documentary roll. There was a feeling that anyone could be next. Perspective is one of the most important decisions that ends up getting made in the course of telling a story like this. In a weird way I almost think of myself as a portraiture, and so when you’re finding a fascinating subject, the whole goal is to capture them in their complexity. I was writing for a TV show at the time, and a good friend and partner of mine, Tim Walsh, came into the writer’s room and said, “Man, there’s this homicide cop that worked The Night Stalker case, and I think there’s an amazing documentary there. We needed to honor their stories and what they went through. I was so struck by the vulnerability that he was willing to show and how profoundly it has affected him, not only as a murder cop, but as a man and a father and a husband. Is Silk Road on Netflix? It’s all sort of part of the same trajectory, so I just hope to bring them along to the next stages of the work. More than three decades after he was apprehended in Los Angeles, Richard Ramirez continues to haunt our nightmares. Tiller Russell is known for his work on Bernie (2011), Chicago Fire (2012) and Cockfight (2001). Told over four parts, Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, doesn’t lose itself in the panic of Ramirez’s wave of terror or the media circus of his trial. Meet the dirtiest cop in NYC history. You realize this fits into a continuum of stories. I think his notion at the time was that I would be scared straight and go on the straight and narrow. I didn’t want to glamorize him in any way. So there was this fascinating pairing of the two of them. Those homicide cops and what they went through to catch him became a natural entry into the story. What often happens for the victims of a sensational crime spree is that it can be reductive and dehumanizing. We’re all collectively wrestling with this stuff. What do you want viewers to take away from The Night Stalker series? Netflix just cannot stop with its murder documentaries. Then, seemingly as soon as he appeared, The Night Stalker vanished. He was such an unlikely hero, and I found his story unexpected and incredibly moving. Then the same thing happens at each step of the way, if you’re looking for people — and this one was rich with that — where every person I met with I was like, “Gosh, you’re your own documentary.” It becomes this mosaic-like portrait of Los Angeles and the people whose lives were affected that summer. It’s really incredible that you have a documentary subject that can provide both a human connection to this horrifying case and explain the forensic details. It was such an arresting title that all those other names just faded to black. Sometimes he used a knife, sometimes he used a gun, sometimes he used a hammer. For me, as the crime guy, I spend all my time immersed in these crime stories. Tiller Russell, Producer: Bernie. How to Watch the J Balvin Documentary, Stream It Or Skip It: 'Greenland' on HBO Max, in Which Even Gerard Butler Can't Save Us from the Apocalypse, Stream It Or Skip It: 'Skyfall' on Amazon Prime and Hulu, High-Grade Bond Entertainment From Start To Finish. Philosophical twenty-something Ross Ulbricht creates Silk Road, a dark net website that sells drugs, while DEA agent Rick Bowden goes undercover to bring him down. Then there was the weird kind of cathartic “Wait a minute” Ramirez is grabbed by citizens in the neighborhood of places where he was terrorizing. With Nick Robinson, Jennifer Yun, Jimmi Simpson, Jason Clarke. Tiller Russell movies and TV shows. It’s directed by Tiller Russell (known for his recent crime series on Netflix, Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer) and based on the Rolling Stone article written by Kushner in 2014. Some of the most moving and compelling were those victims and survivors. 421, This story has been shared 341 times. 1,444, This story has been shared 823 times. They were women. 1,651, This story has been shared 1,444 times. With Gil there was somebody who had this precision with his memory and skill with which he worked this case as an investigator, and yet he also had this incredible, great big open heart that was broken and weeping with the tragedy of walking down into the depths of hell to work this story. Tiller Russell a director filming a Netflix documentary called Operation Odessa, was in Moscow when he received this text: “You’ve met the waiters.