‘Born Evil: The Serial Killer and the Savior’ Tells a Shocking True Crime Story — and Breaks the Genre’s Conventions
When it comes to breathing new life into true crime this year, the ID Channel has brought audiences increasingly ambitious episodes of returning favorites like “Evil Lives Here,” new programs like “Deadly Influence: The Social Media Murders,” and specials like “Quiet on Set.”
The network pushes the boundaries of the genre even further with the Michael Bay-produced “Born Evil: The Serial Killer and the Savior,” a limited series entirely devoted to killer Hadden Clark. Clark’s name isn’t very familiar even to committed true crime aficionados, and that’s probably because his story is so vast, complex, and frankly insane. Thankfully, Bay has come along to sort it all out for us in an original style that befits such a singular story — and points a possible way forward for the true-crime docuseries format.
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Hadden Clark is not the charismatic serial killer everyone thought was a nice, normal neighbor; he is a twitchy, psychotic drifter camping out in the woods. He considers himself a nice guy, and yet when he’s evicted from a basement he was renting, he puts fish guts behind fresh drywall in the walls. When his painfully sensitive and compassionate younger brother, Geoff, says Hadden can’t stay with him anymore, Hadden kills a little girl who lives next door to punish him.
Hadden has been a Navy man, a chef, a courier, a gardener, and more, and has a bucket full of trophies from his likely hundreds of victims from all around the country and from every port in which he was stationed. He also has an alternate personality named Kristen E. Bluefin, who wears women’s clothes and wigs while killing. Geoff says Hadden wasn’t right from birth, and he distinguishes Hadden’s brand of evil as a level beyond that of their older brother, Bradfield, who is also a proven murderer and likely a cannibalistic serial killer! Not only that, but Hadden claims their father was a serial killer, too. Are you interested yet? Because this is barely half of the story.
The other half of the story is one of the major departures from the usual true crime format. This story has a hero, like a fictional narrative film would, and he’s a character himself. Former marijuana dealer John “Jack” Patrick Truitt, resembles a lost member of ZZ Top but when he becomes Hadden’s roommate, Hadden is mentally ill enough at the time to think Truitt really is the son of God. Hadden wants to confess all of his sins to Truitt so they can be washed away; Truitt wants nothing to do with him, but when Hadden says he knows where a little girl’s body was hidden, Truitt feels the tug of civic duty and has Hadden confess his crimes in a diary, in the process uncovering far more murders than anyone anticipated.
Bay is credited as producer and director on “Born Evil,” but he also personally conducted audio interviews with Hadden in the show. Perhaps because of his close involvement, this show has a more cinematic style and structure than the usual true crime shows, in which the creators tend to remain respectfully invisible and opt for a melancholy tone. But this is Michael Bay, so “Born Evil” features energetic editing, day-glo paint splatter graphics, pumped-up color treatments, and better-than-usual recreations and interview settings. Instead of experts and witnesses sitting in living rooms for their interviews with their names on the screen, this show gives everyone a memorable introduction and a role to play in the unfolding of the story, like a scripted show or movie would. Truitt, for instance, is interviewed in an ornate church surrounded by lit candles, and later episodes delve into his crime and his own happy ending.
Bay’s style is always divisive, but hopefully, even those who don’t love it will be intrigued by how different this show is, which raises the question of what else is stylistically possible in the genre. The marketplace is saturated and fatigue is starting to set in, but what other auteurs might weigh in with their own unique styles, voices, and stories?
Even for detractors of the true crime genre and cottage industry, “Born Evil” serves an undeniably important, practical purpose. Hadden Clark is currently eligible for parole and has stated plainly that he plans to return to killing if released — starting with Geoff. The existence of this program will, at the very least, raise awareness so there can never be a horrific oversight where he goes free because his full story wasn’t known.
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