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The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker (2023)
So I got into true crime, like a ghoul, and I watched The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker (2023). TW: Murder, sexual assault.
Also, I hate that, after the flush offirst second romance with Mastodon, like so many other people, I was like:
In the beginning: This is great! No dumb discourse! It's so chill!
Now: What the fuck. Where's my hit of enraging discourse. It's so chill.
And here I am, knee-jerk posting my negative thoughts on Twitter and continuing to be part of the fucking problem. UGH!
So this was really frustrating. I can't tell if my feelings are what the documentarians want me to feel or not.
It just feels to me like these vultures exploited a clearly unbalanced homeless man with violent tendencies. Did they offer him... a home? A place to stay? MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT? They talked about giving him $500 and him immediately giving it away, but didn't say whether more substantial assistance was offered. I would really have liked to know if any of that was attempted by anyone that entered this guy's life.
The reporter who was essentially his "manager" seems to mostly believe Kai's story about being raped while on the road. The other dude seems to maybe believe his story about having a bad childhood. The mother denies locking him in his room, but no one presses her on it. No one asks her about the dark blankets over the windows. No one asks her why she put Kai into the system. If they do ask and cut it, they don't make it clear that that happened, there's no "we asked and she didn't respond" text over black or anything like that.
If the cops or documentarians looked into whether the murder victim was also a rapist, or had prior victims, it is not shown in the documentary. It's quite possible I'm being far too credulous, but the cop says Kai went back to stay the night with his rapist and embraced him, as if this never happens. He's fucking homeless. Survivors with homes do things like this. What on Earth. [ETA: What I mean to say is, I could easily see a survivor, especially one who literally lives on the street, suffering an assault, going back to their rapist, suffering another assault, and killing them. I do think it was likely not in self-defense, or that it was likely an attack that went well beyond the boundaries of self-defense.]
Now that I think about it, there are also no talking head experts that work with unhoused people, that work with survivors, that work with victims of child abuse. There are no profilers/people that look into the behavioral psychology of both victims of crime and those who commit crime. There's no experts on viral internet fame and what that looked like in 2013 vs before then vs now. This could have been a lot deeper and more compassionate and more interesting.
It definitely held my attention the whole way through, was well-shot and well-paced. I'm talking about it. So they did what they set out to do, I guess. It got me all mad, I guess that's what they wanted.
I don't know, am I wrong? Am I too credulous? Am I expecting too much out of a Netflix true crime doc? Did any of you watch it?
Also, I hate that, after the flush of
In the beginning: This is great! No dumb discourse! It's so chill!
Now: What the fuck. Where's my hit of enraging discourse. It's so chill.
And here I am, knee-jerk posting my negative thoughts on Twitter and continuing to be part of the fucking problem. UGH!
So this was really frustrating. I can't tell if my feelings are what the documentarians want me to feel or not.
It just feels to me like these vultures exploited a clearly unbalanced homeless man with violent tendencies. Did they offer him... a home? A place to stay? MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT? They talked about giving him $500 and him immediately giving it away, but didn't say whether more substantial assistance was offered. I would really have liked to know if any of that was attempted by anyone that entered this guy's life.
The reporter who was essentially his "manager" seems to mostly believe Kai's story about being raped while on the road. The other dude seems to maybe believe his story about having a bad childhood. The mother denies locking him in his room, but no one presses her on it. No one asks her about the dark blankets over the windows. No one asks her why she put Kai into the system. If they do ask and cut it, they don't make it clear that that happened, there's no "we asked and she didn't respond" text over black or anything like that.
If the cops or documentarians looked into whether the murder victim was also a rapist, or had prior victims, it is not shown in the documentary. It's quite possible I'm being far too credulous, but the cop says Kai went back to stay the night with his rapist and embraced him, as if this never happens. He's fucking homeless. Survivors with homes do things like this. What on Earth. [ETA: What I mean to say is, I could easily see a survivor, especially one who literally lives on the street, suffering an assault, going back to their rapist, suffering another assault, and killing them. I do think it was likely not in self-defense, or that it was likely an attack that went well beyond the boundaries of self-defense.]
Now that I think about it, there are also no talking head experts that work with unhoused people, that work with survivors, that work with victims of child abuse. There are no profilers/people that look into the behavioral psychology of both victims of crime and those who commit crime. There's no experts on viral internet fame and what that looked like in 2013 vs before then vs now. This could have been a lot deeper and more compassionate and more interesting.
It definitely held my attention the whole way through, was well-shot and well-paced. I'm talking about it. So they did what they set out to do, I guess. It got me all mad, I guess that's what they wanted.
I don't know, am I wrong? Am I too credulous? Am I expecting too much out of a Netflix true crime doc? Did any of you watch it?