Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story

A two part documentary exposing the rise and posthumous fall of the former DJ, and prolific predator, Jimmy Savile.

The first part deals with his beginnings, where he came from, his charity work, the circles he moved in, the second, is a lot more intense, it deals with the real man underneath the cigar smoking facade.

I'm stunned how it wasn't seen by everyone, the revelations are shocking, and the accounts of his victims are truly horrific.

It's a very well made documentary, it's incredibly uncomfortable viewing, but it is interesting, shocking to believe how such things happened.

Creepier than anything, shame on those that facilitated his behaviour, and allowed it to happen. It would have been easy to say, I don't want to watch it, he makes my skin crawl, I just wanted to understand how it could happen.

Andrew Neal did at least try to take him to task.

A shocking story, 8/10.

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.

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.

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.

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.