Dear Mr. Gacy

Plot Summary:

The film is an adaptation of Jason Moss’s autobiographical book entitled The Last Victim.

The book is a documentation of Moss’s decision to contact John Wayne Gacy (as well as other serial killers) for his university dissertation. Though Moss wrote to people such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Charlie Manson, his relationship with Gacy was the most influential and the most intense; the film focusing only on this correspondence.

The film begins with Moss suggesting to his professor his plan to contact Gacy. His professor opposes to a degree Moss’s decision and as do his parents, but he goes on regardless. After writing his first letter, Moss receives a questionnaire from Gacy, with both general and sexual questions, this causes Moss’s girlfriend to also have concerns.

Over time, Gacy and Moss exchange more letters. Moss soon releases that he needs to devise a plan on how to get close to Gacy, he does this in several ways; notably pretending to be homosexual. Gacy then begins to call Moss, eventually calling him almost every night. Moss at this point decides to pretend to be a prostitute to further impress Gacy.

When Gacy becomes more overtly sexual towards Moss, asking him to do things such as masturbate over the phone and even to have sex with his brother, Moss becomes ever more paranoid about Gacy getting someone to harm him and the relationships around him begin to crumble due to this paranoia. Moss even buys a gun to defend himself.

His contact with Gacy begins to subside as he becomes more introverted. Suddenly though, Gacy calls Moss again and asks him to visit him in prison, as his execution date is only a week away. Moss agrees to visit Gacy and the next day travels across the country to do so. By special request of Gacy, he and Moss are locked in a room by themselves, the guards being several rooms away.

Moss’s mind set is only damaged further, Gacy’s mood going erratically between glee and anger. Eventually, after Gacy attempts to rape Moss and succeeds in molesting him, Moss simply leaves and goes back home. The film ends with Moss receiving a letter from Gacy two days after his execution (the letter having being written the day before the execution), with Gacy explaining to him how one day they will meet again.

Review:

I watched this film after reading Moss’s book. It’s one of the rare occasions where justice is actually done to the story by it being turned into a film. I feel that the book was unable to paint pictures of the events as it was simply written factually. This though, I did forgive when I read it – As of course, Moss was not a novelist, he was a criminology student.

The book lacks the emotional depth that the film portrayed. As I said, the book is very factual and does not at all portray the fear Moss would have felt (and expressed to have felt in later interviews) in the situation he was facing.

Moss was (again, according to himself and family members) an emotional wreck after his experiment with Gacy (Moss actually committing suicide because of his experiences in June 2006) and this is portrayed perfectly in the film.

His mental state deteriorates in the kind of way someone who is being stalked is, which I feel summed up Moss’s situation seamlessly. The overall look of the film attracted me too. The colouring is very muted throughout the whole film and only gets darker as it goes on.

The only fault I could think of for the film is the lack of exploration of Moss’s letters to other serial killers, though I usually subside this as it is by far not a key element of the book. I would give the movie 8.5 out of 10 and I highly recommend you watch it!

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