‘Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer’ updates trash-TV aesthetics for the prestige true-crime era

A review of the new docuseries, on Netflix January 13th

Los Angeles in the 1980s: a time of glitz, glamour, and so much cocaine, and also a time when people became acutely aware of the fact that the fashion- and fame-filled streets also had a seedy underbelly, full of evil people lurking in both literal and figurative shadow. (Sure, that describes Los Angeles pretty much all the time, but go with me here). This is the world of the Night Stalker, a man who used the cover of darkness to slip into the homes of unsuspecting Angelenos, where he wrought unspeakable evil.

Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, a new four-part docuseries coming to Netflix January 13th, speaks that unspeakable evil. The series is an in-depth look at the Night Stalker’s summer of terror, with a specific focus on the recollections of the detectives who followed his literal trail around Southern California. It’s a pulse-pounding, gripping watch, a well-made odyssey back in time to an era that terrorized a city. And, in its focus on law enforcement and in its salacious recounting of gruesome details of the Night Stalker’s horrific crimes, it’s somewhat of an oddity in Netflix’s true-crime oeuvre.