good back-story, and good acting

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This is a TV movie based on a true story. The killer is Phillip who does extremely well at medical school, and chases a new student Megan, pushing for her to be with him instead of studying. He was creepy from the very start. They moved in together only 6 months after they first met, and soon he wanted to marry her, and they both have a joint bank account. The girl Megan comes across as totally brainwashed by Phillip, even when he fails to pay any rent and drains the bank account when she needs money and when he turns up home at very late hours. She's not even suspicious when he returns home from scratches on his neck. In fact no one asks him about that later on. One of his victims who was found dead scratched him. He was an evil killer and this TV movie kind of humanised him and romanticised him. Why did they put on sickly music and show Phillip and Megan in a heavenly scene talking about their future together with children? It seemed very weird and sick. The victims never got justice but atleast they know he was responsible. Megan dumped the engagement ring in prison and packed away the wedding dress. That scene played more sad music, which was inappropriate and unecessary because she's a moron completely besotted by her murderer evil boyfriend. I didn't like this film at all. TV movies are often good at making films based on true events, and also even if they add some changes they're always good but this film was dull and almost sympathetic to the killer.

This movie is a dramatisation of real-life events, about a guy who's darker side takes over and leads to murder. As such, there is no dissection of the psyche to explain the lead character's flaws and proclivities. This is just a collection of scenes strung together by people involved in the events, presenting a portrait of a man just like everyone else but who spiralled out of control.It seems clear there was no participation from Philip Markoff or his family, so there are inevitable gaps in the story. However, there are enough nuggets presented to allow a clear picture to evolve of a complex character.Philip Markoff doesn't come over as a monster. Instead he's just like everyone else; a person with multiple facets to their personality, who leads a double-life, who hides aspects of his life from other people - just like everyone does. Don't think everyone hides parts of themselves from others? How many people hide their browsing history from others? How many married people have affairs? How many people are polite to your face and then curse you behind your back. We all have multiple aspects to ourselves, but for some people these aspects can be damaging. This film presents a portrait of a 'normal' man, with no judgements or fake insights.As part of the portrait of a normal man, Philip Markoff isn't presented as some dark, evil genius; he's actually quite bad at keeping his lives separate, he's no computer genius, and he's obviously never watched CSI. He's a normal guy who gets caught fairly quickly because he doesn't know how to hide his tracks, just like everyone else.This film is exactly what it tries to be, a simple portrait of events that shocked a nation. There's no huge budget, no intense emotion-wrenching acting, no pop-psych 101, just a simple story about a troubled man. I didn't watch this film expecting Oscar-class movie making. It's a made for TV film that delivers exactly what it set out to, a solid film about the guy next door.

Jake Mcdorman, besides being ridiculously attractive that he is unlike the real bad guy, did a decent job portraying the role of Philip Markoff in this movie by hiding his psychotic other personality from others for a significant amount of time. It was a role that he definitely knew how to act out without trying too hard which made it an overall good movie besides being easy on the eye. His TV wife however, was a bad actress, and honestly didn't have much charisma for the role. Perhaps a more well established actress could have been considered, who knows? He isn't a big actor either, but does a thorough job. I had a hunch that a movie like this would come out onto Lifetime just because Lacy Peterson and Natalie Holloway were also made into movies and were broadcasting on Lifetime. No big shocker there. Still this was a sexy thriller that i definitely enjoyed even though i normally don't watch Lifetime.

Like the rest of the world (it was a trending topic on Twitter) I was anxiously awaiting the world premiere of The Craigslist Killer. I'll give it this: for a Lifetime movie, it wasn't half bad. Could it have been better? Yes. At times the acting was bad, the music was cheesy, and it was a bit slow for the first thirty minutes. I was expecting the killing scenes to be a bit more intense than they were, but I guess that's what you get with a woman's network. I think if this had been taken to the big screen and directed by Scorsese it would have been a box office hit. You have to remember that Lifetime is a network directed towards women, so the movies are directed towards women as well (hence all the romance in the beginning.) All in all I'd say it was a decent movie. It wasn't something I would pay money to see, but it was something that filled my time and kept me semi interested.