Chris Watts: Confessions of a Killer

If you followed the headlines about this terrible tragedy you will recognise a lot of the story incorporated into this Lifetime movie. The happy social media of the young mother is contrasted with an affair the hubby had going on.

The actor looks like the murderer and the actress Ashley Williams with her big smile from Hallmark movies looks like the unfortunate woman.

The killing which is even more heinous than the Scott Peterson is recreated not too gruesomely but frustratingly there's no much insight into how he could kill his daughters even if he was in love with another woman.

The entire setup is from a man's perspective. Leading us to suspect the vitamins he was taking, this poor husband who's wife doted on him, doing everything to make him look like a good father, adequate husband and all round normal guy, were responsible for his actions. This guy killed his wife and children. There are women lining up to be his new wife. Does anyone see anything wrong with this? It's like a serial killer taking out a want add for body needed. Stop feeding this narcissistic, child killer's ego and have some respect for her family and friends. I marked this as no spoilers, saying it's not worth the money...isn't technically "spoiling" anything, is it?

Some reviewers have missed the point of this film. It isn't entertainment so much as an historical document following the actual timeline closely and without gratuitous violence. If one serious criticism can be made of it, it is that it was produced with indecent haste, but this is hardly the first time American cinema/TV has done something like this. The TV film "Amanda Knox" was released less than four years after that infamous murder in Perugia and while legal proceeding were ongoing. As Watts confessed and there is no suggestion of either another suspect or a belated claim of insanity, the legal proceedings are at an end in this case.

"I'm not a monster" he says in the police interrogation room. You strangled your heavily pregnant wife then murdered your two beautiful young daughters, then blamed their murders on the first victim, then instead of doing the decent thing and ending your own life, you disposed of their bodies like pieces of rubbish. If you aren't a monster, who is?

Awful representation of an innocent woman, awful hints at excuses for watts' behaviour. Awful depiction of watts as some kind of character it almost seems like they want us to like. Because they sure didnt want us to like his poor, innocent wife!! Awful timing. Completely disrespectful. Her poor family must be so upset. There have been far better films produced about killers where the psychology is thoroughly explored and the victims more honorably portrayed. This just reeked of a rush to make money as fast as possible. Almost just a copy of the police bodycam footage and stuff with nothing new added. Awful.

This Lifetime film serves one purpose only and that is to illustrate how one man who was a husband, a father and an adulterer committed four (4) heinous murders. If the actual four (4) murders was not enough Chris Watts disposed of his entire families bodies as if they were garbage by burying them where he believed they never would be found. But like most adulterers and criminals, their cumulative lies to the people and family that surround them, the truth is rather easy to put the puzzle together for any good detectives.

I understand why most people would not consider this Lifetime film to be "entertaining" as any father who would commit such heinous acts should automatically be put to death, no "Ifs", "Ands", or "Buts". This film rather satisfies the urge to understand how "any man" could murder his entire family and curiosity how he did it and in his mind the one question that needs to be answered is "WHY?"

I will let the medical professionals and forensic criminal investigators provide us with that answer another day, but for now, I was satisfied to know the families bodies (what was left of them) were recovered a few days after their reported disappearance. Chris watts admitted to burying his pregnant wife and daughters at the place of his employment at Anadarko Petroleum, on August 16. He was fired on August 15, the day of his arrest. The girls' bodies were found hidden in oil tanks. Shanann and the unborn Nico were buried in a shallow grave nearby.

As this is only a ninety (90) minute movie we really should not expect to glean too much factual information into the head of the murderer Chris Watts, but I would have preferred if the producers would have depicted this devil of a man as being soulless without a conscience, and instead the film almost normalizes these murders as just another entertaining made for TV film.

I give it an IMDB rating of 6 out of 10 as it did answer some basic questions that were lingering about the Watts family murders.