Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story

A long winded build up to finally revealing the horrors Jimmy Savile wreaked during his lifetime. The interviews were relevant, good use of archival footage, and the doc flowed easily.

The Jimmy Savile story is horrific , complex, and was needing told properly, an in depth study of what made this man the way he was. It needed an insight into his many victims,their stories and how lives were ruined.

Unfortunately this latest documentary offered nothing new. The same stuff wehave seen many times. It was slow paced and never really got its teeth properly into why Jimmy Savile did what he did. What were his early days like, as a child, his upbringing ? It was briefly mentioned but never elaborated on. Instead we get the same story thats been told many times before in similar documentaries.

It had its interesting moments, but overall this documentary was a disappointing anti-climax after all hype from Netflix.

This story is a National tragedy of the British entertainment scene. This documentary tells the story of the rise and posthumous fall of one of Britain's top entertainers for 5 decades. Jimmy Savile was an odd man who managed to keep much of his personal life out of the press and the source of much speculation. He controlled his image and he did many great things for people in need. But there was a dark side that was hinted at but eventually surfaced. Some things that were unclear was whether his good deeds were the vehicle to hide the bad or to ease his conscience. It is also unclear to what extent people looked the other way. Why is clear is his fame gave him access to do unspeakable things to innocents. This story parallels Bull Cosby' sin many ways. Told through interviews, footage, and narration it is good. It could have been a movie Instead of two parts but there was such a long history of footage I guess it makes sense.

This documentary is 240 mins and divided into 2 episodes. It is only the final act of this documentary they talk about the actual sexual exploits. The entire show is a build up to the last 25 mins which actually deals with what happens.

Its one of those doco's where a person will come on and say, "You would hear these things, but you wouldn't believe it.... but deep down. I knew!". This goes on for everyone who comes on the show. It's really laughable.

So, I would say, don't watch it. Watch a YouTube video which deals with this topic. I will also say, it is just a Netflix thing to stretch out shows and this was really stretched out. You might find your attention wandering.

An uncomfortable but neccesary watch but probably not for the reasons we might think. My take away was that this series wasn't at all about JS, but actually about us - the British public, the British institution. Yes we know he was a monster and we as a nation were arguably victims ourselves of his grooming - but we also were the ones who placed him on that pedestal, who made him untouchable by the cult of celebrity, who turned a blind eye even when he flaunted his perversions in our faces (look at allllll that bloody archive!!) - that's the true British Horror Story. I feel a few true crime fans will miss the point of this by assuming it's going to be a tell-all victim-lead, come for the gory details Finding Neverland-esque, type of doc. But this is a story that's far bigger and sinister as it turns the camera back at us and forces us to confront the roles that we all played in this.