Capturing the Killer Nurse

An interesting documentary, however there is far too much focus on how this main nurse who ended up helping capture this killer felt so sorry for him and kept saying what a great nurse this he was. Like she couldn't stop long enough to look at reality instead of bouncing back to what she thought was reality. She even has the nerve to put the responsibility on her 11-year-old daughter of whether or not she should help the investigation! Not a bad watch though, put together well by Netflix. What does strike me though, if I may say so, is that we never hear anything bad about hospitals even though they allowed this person, and others not really unlike him - this is not the first such story -- yet the Catholic Church is practically known for harboring the few pedophiles that eventually came to light. How ironic that people are so willing to vilify the church but not the hospital yet this crime was exceedingly worse than what the church did. Just food for thought.

First of all, when I first watched the official teaser of the documentary I liked it and I had high expectations about it. Eventually, it was as good as I had imagined and I liked it. The plot of the documentary was very interesting and mysterious. The storyline was well-written, well-explained and everything was accurate. I have to admit, it was a kinda intense documentary, especially the ending part. In my opinion, it was a nice crime documentary and it wasn't boring. The ending part was kinda predictable, but it was emotionally intense. Overall, "Capturing the Killer Nurse" was a nice documentary and I would probably recommend it to my friends.

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but in the case of this documentary, it's an improvement. Serial killers have been a compelling subject for dramatization since Hitchcock's "Psycho," at least in American popular culture. But the fascination dates back to Jack the Ripper, and even farther back to the Middle Ages. This year it's Netflix's recent portrayal of the "good nurse" killer, a dismal excuse for biographical adaptation. It might have been worthwhile if it had offered new insight into horrible events, portrayed compelling emotions, or delved into human nature. The result could have been interesting, even entertaining, like a thriller. This documentary accomplishes all of this with no convoluted plot and contrived performances. The actual killer, Charles Cullen, is a far more chilling and impenetrable human being than the one portrayed by Eddie Redmayne. Cullen's matter-of-fact delivery as he explains the motivations that lead him to kill patients and his almost childlike self-possession are unnerving. Redmayne is a good actor, but his choice of intonation and nearly comatose performance failed to capture these real qualities. With straight-forward story telling and genuine emotion, this film imparts unimaginable horrors all the more frightening because they are so credible.

The killer nurse, Cullen, like Dr. Death, Duntsch, was enabled by a medical system more concerned with profit than upholding morality. Just as Duntsch did, Cullen was passed down from one hospital to another like a sexually transmitted disease to continue his appetite for killing patients. The two murderers were apprehended and convicted ten years apart, so it is apparent that the medical system did not learn their lesson.

The documentary could have delved more into Cullen's early life. Tape recordings of the man himself described a boy who was petrified by the loss of safety resulting from the death of his mother, his only protector. No clue was given as to what or whom he feared. But this terror became the seed out of which grew a sociopathic killer.

Cullen claimed that he could not bear witnessing the suffering of the patients and therefore killed them out of mercy. Yet these patients were on the mend and not terminally ill when he brought forward their demise. It was never about the patients and everything to do with his own inner anguish. He projected his suffering onto them and symbolically vanquished it by ending their lives.

Netflix, shortly after releasing "the Good Nurse", featuring Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain, put forth a documentary about the same events. The documentary follows Charles Cullen, an ICU nurse, who jumps hospitals every time he gets into trouble and finds most of his work in intensive care units, which handle patients with severe or life-threatening illnesses or injuries.

Cullen is mostly described by his coworkers as smart but corky, and a bit weird however overall a good nurse. He has a certain panacea for pharmaceuticals particularly remembering the name use of the medicines even for the rare ones.

After graduating with a nursing degree in 1986, Cullen started working for St Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston. He went on a killing spree from 1986 until his arrest in December 2003. He repeatedly claimed that he wanted to end patients' lives to end their suffering, nonetheless, he killed patients who were getting better and sometimes as young as 21 years old.

Over the years he confessed to killing 40 people. Although when considering the time frame of roughly about 16 years of nursing and the relative ease of killing his patients, he is assumed to kill more than 400 people.