After watching so many movies in the last quarter of the year, I often don’t feel like watching very many movies in January. So I end up turning to true crime series and documentaries. Death In The Dorms showed up just in time.
Death In The Dorms is a 6-episode mini-series. Each episode tells the story of a college student murdered on or near their college campus.
While this series does hit a little close to home (my daughter is currently a college junior), I thought it did a good job of telling each student’s story. Unlike most true crime documentaries that focus on the killer, this series features the family and friends of the victims. Yes, we do still hear about the crime and how the murderer was caught but we hear more about how each student lived and how much they are missed.
I know that hearing the sordid details of the crime and the terrible history of the killer tends to get shows higher ratings. However, I think that the format Death In The Dorms uses should be the blueprint for future true crime documentaries. Let’s focus on the victims and their lives instead of glorifying the evil monsters that took those lives from them. Maybe people will be less willing to do terrible things if we stop plastering the bad guy’s name all over the place.
