Interesting Albert Fish Documentary

Last night I watched the documentary Albert Fish about one of the most notorious child killers in American history.  For those in the horror community, I have to assume that many of you already know about Mr. Fish and his deviance, but I didn't know all that much aside from the fact that he killed children and was a psychotic masochist who had pins and needles inserted into his body at the time of his arrest.  After watching this documentary I found out that he was even worse a deviant than I had known, but I won't get into that.  If you're interested you should watch the film for yourself.

I do have to say that I thought the documentary (what netflix call a "docudrama," which is bullshit because it's really nothing more than a documentary, which isn't what I expected) was a bit too long and spent too much time discussing his religious inspired motives as if he was just a troubled man who went wrong.  It's important to find out what's in the mind of a killer, but I think some of the commentary in this documentary, particularly that of Joe Coleman who seemed to me to have an unhealthy obsession with the child killing bastard, attempted to give Fish an out because of his horrible upbringing and the words of the bible as interpreted literally.  Clearly these things were seeds in Fish's self destruction, but he was really nothing more than a vicious man with a vicious appetite who, in my opinion, used the Bible as a means to justify his maniacal impulsions.  (As a side note, Joe Coleman has done amazing paintings of serial killers including Fish that, in themselves, are quite disturbing and graphic.)

In the end, I enjoyed the documentary in that I learned about a sick fuck that I knew little about, and though parts of the film were done very well, I think it could have been a bit shorter, which would have made a more poignant impact.  I give it 3 out of 5 stars.