There’s definitely no shortage of true crime TV shows, movies and podcasts these days and Netflix cashed in on the craze with 2015’s Making a Murderer. This time they’re approaching the genre a little differently with the David Fincher and Charlize Theron produced show Mindhunter.
The show’s first season, which will be released for your binge-watching pleasure on October 13th, follows two special agents on the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit played by Jonathan Groff (best known for his roles on Broadway, Glee and HBO’s Looking) and Holt McCallany (known for roles in Fight Club, Alien 3 and Criminal Minds) who interview imprisoned serial killers to try to solve ongoing cases.
The show, which is set in 1979 at the beginning of FBI profiling, is based on the book Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by Mark Olshaker and John E. Douglas. Douglas was one of the very first criminal profilers with extensive experience in the field having interviewed infamous serial killers like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Dennis Rader.
Groff’s character in Mindhunter is directly based on Douglas, but this isn’t the first time he’s been the inspiration for a fictional character. Jack Crawford, a major character in Thomas Harris’ novels Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs and the film and TV adaptations of the Hannibal Lecter stories is also based on him. And of course, creators of Criminal Minds have confirmed that FBI profilers Jason Gideon and David Rossi were both based on Douglas as well.
Mindhunter will be a little different in that it uses real life cases (you’ll catch a glimpse someone who is the spitting image of Edmund Kemper and photos of Charles Manson and David Berkowitz in the trailer). We’ll get to see how criminal profiling was born, what it was capable of and the origin of the term “serial killer”.
Netflix must pretty confident the show will do well considering it’s already been renewed for a second season. Watch the full trailer below:
