There are plenty of documentaries that feature the haunting stories of real serial killers. Netflix houses a number of them and attempts to cover not only the origin of the killer and their heinous acts but the victims and their families. One film tells the story of a fictional killer and his family but is inspired by some real-life horrors.
The Clovehitch Killer stars Dylan McDermott (who many horror fans will recognize from American Horror Story) as Don Burnside, a man heavily involved in the small town of Clarksville, Kentucky. Don is married to Cindy (Samantha Mathis) and they have two children, Susie (Brenna Sherman) and Tyler (Charlie Plummer). Like many Netflix thrillers, as ordinary as life may seem in the small town, they are haunted by a dark history. For this town, it is Clovehitch, an uncaught serial killer with ten known victims.
Clovehitch was known for binding and strangling his victims before he suddenly stopped ten years ago. The killer received his name because he left a clove hitch knot at each crime scene. With no other kills like this in a ten-year span, police are convinced that Clovehitch either died or moved out of town. Around the time of the annual memorial for the Clovehitch victims, Tyler takes his father's truck out to pick up his crush. In the truck, she comes across intense bondage photos that make her incredibly uncomfortable. After passing the truck off as his own, she becomes convinced that Tyler is the owner of the photos and word spreads over the small religious town. Tyler then becomes alienated from his friends who all believe he has a diseased mind.
Curious about his father's possessions, Tyler lurks in his father's forbidden shed and becomes concerned with what he finds. After he befriends local outcast Kassi (Madisen Beaty), who has the reputation for being obsessed with Clovehitch, Tyler begins to wonder if his father is truly the man he's always believed him to be.
Tyler's father, Don, is a leader in the church and a boy scout troop leader. Many of the young men in the troop look up to him and continue to admire him even after they are convinced Tyler is a mentally sick teen. One of the things Don teaches the boys in the troop is the many different types of knots that can be tied. Combined with the photos and material Tyler comes across, he becomes more and more skeptical of his father.
The Clovehitch Killer is a chilling story that shows the way a cold-hearted criminal can switch between two personas. This isn't unheard of in true-crime cases, as many killers have families who insist they knew nothing of the dark activities that happened outside of the home. For Clovehitch, the screenwriter, Christopher Ford, revealed that the film was inspired by a real killer with a story eerily similar to the one seen in the film.
Ford told Long Live the Void that The Clovehitch Killer is inspired by Dennis Rader or as he may be more widely known, the BTK Killer. The BTK Killer was active from 1974 to 1991 and was responsible for the deaths of ten people. He coined the BTK name as an abbreviation of his killing method: bind, torture, kill. While the Clovehitch story isn't identical to Rader's, there are more than a few instances that reveal the inspiration Ford mentions.
The initial victim count for the fictional killer in Clovehitch is the same. The nature of the crime being committed is also similar, but the most haunting similarities come from the film's focus on the family, The Clovehitch Killer is seen as a loving family man who would do anything for his family. He is an attentive husband and present father who is also very active in the town's small community. This is not all that different from Rader's life.
Rader was also a family man and was thought to be a very present figure in his household. During the span of his kills, he had two children with his wife and graduated from college, where he studied criminal justice. In his Kansas community, he was president of his church's council and boy scout troop leader. The eerie similarities to Don Burnside in Clovehitch, make the film much more chilling to watch.
While Clovehitch draws from real events, the film is not a direct representation of the BTK Killer. The Clovehitch Killer consists of a different family, a different story, and has a different ending. Many Clovehitch viewers don't feel satisfied by the film's conclusion and it is a reasonable feeling. After the tension in the Burnside household once accusations begin to fly and altered truths are shared, it becomes hard to know who to believe. Clovehitch doesn't just follow the killer himself but also follows Tyler and even Kassi. Being able to see the different pieces of this story makes it much easier to formulate an opinion on who is telling the truth. In thinking about how confusing it might be for the characters in the film, it's not hard to understand why Tyler makes some of the decisions he does.
The Clovehitch Killer is now streaming on Netflix.