Tales of the Grim Sleeper
HBO Documentary Films | Release Date: December 26, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 9 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
IndieWireEric KohnDec 8, 2014
Tales from the Grim Sleeper concludes by offering up the haunting possibility that even if the killer has been caught, the systemic failures that let him get away with it for so long remain firmly in place. Read full review
91
The PlaylistChris WillmanDec 8, 2014
Wisely, Broomfield doesn’t harp on alleged police incompetence, beyond letting a handful of activists and locals repeatedly raise it as an issue; Tales is far from overbearing as far as agitprop goes, letting the outrage quietly seep in. Read full review
90
VarietyScott FoundasDec 8, 2014
What emerges, finally, is an urgent distress call from one of America’s many, predominately black inner cities cast adrift by decades of municipal neglect and institutional racism. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineClayton DillardDec 8, 2014
Broomfield isn't so much dedicated to journalistic truth or social ethnography as he is displaying bodies and mindsets of individuals that complicate any sense of Manichean polemics, where good and evil must be reckoned with at a purely secular and corporeal level, particularly along the lines of class and gender. Read full review
80
CineVueBen NicholsonJan 29, 2015
The dark recesses of a diseased mind may make the headline, but it is the indictment of far more widespread infection that rings out and is striking in its prescience. Read full review
80
The DissolveNathan RabinDec 17, 2014
The film is an appropriately dour and intense indictment of a law-enforcement community that did not value the lives of some victims enough to devote anything but the slimmest of resources to tracking their killer down. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinDec 11, 2014
The film is as much a provocative exposé of Franklin, who awaits trial on murder charges and has proclaimed his innocence, as it is a vivid portrait of a community long plagued by drugs, crime, poverty and desperation. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonDec 8, 2014
Tales of the Grim Sleeper is unusually somber and conventional by Broomfield's standards, relying more on slow accumulation of detail than caustic commentary or ambush interviews. But it has a quiet emotional force which pays off during the powerful final sequence. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGodfrey CheshireDec 19, 2014
If there are any heroic figures in this sad tale, it’s the women of Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, a grassroots activists organization that took notice of the killings back in the ‘80s and spent decades trying to bring official and media attention to them. Read full review
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