- Network: Peacock , PEACOCK-OTT
- Series Premiere Date: Mar 25, 2021
Critic Reviews
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Arguably the most comprehensive and fascinating — and yes, disturbing and sometimes macabre — telling of one of the darkest chapters in Chicago and American history.
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This six-part non-fiction venture is a bit too comprehensive; like so many of its genre brethren, it could have been at least one episode shorter without losing any key facts or insights. That’s especially felt in its back half, when an inordinate amount of attention is given to the minutiae of Gacy’s trial. ... Fortunately, John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise is otherwise exhaustive, illuminating, and intriguing.
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The interview with Gacy is what makes John Wayne Gacy: Devil In Disguise so fascinating; it certainly paints a different picture of him than what viewers are likely used to, well beyond the Killer Clown archetype that has been how he’s been characterized over the past four decades.
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At its best, Devil in Disguise shows how the climate of late-’70s in Middle America fostered sexual exploitation and self-loathing even as it presented the world with a wholesome face. Like most multipart true-crime documentaries on streaming platforms—in this case, Peacock, where it debuts on Friday—Devil in Disguise is too long.
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John Wayne Gacy is dead, and Devil In Disguise is correct in that whatever is left to say about him isn’t a horror story about an evil criminal mastermind, but a cautionary tale of a serial predator who went unpunished because he looked and acted like the men who were supposed to stop him. Where the series falls short is that, in its attempts to be a definitive account, its interrogation of the Gacy case gets caught up with the myth it’s debunking.