True-crime is clearly a genre that shows no signs of dying.
Two more true-crime tales have entered this week’s Netflix’s top ten – Amy Bradley Is Missing and Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes – evidence that the streamer is continuing to mine new ground in a crowded marketplace.
Amy Bradley Is Missing, which tells the story of how the 23-year-old disappeared without a trace from the cruise ship she and her family were vacationing on, took the number three spot in television with another 4.2M views, just behind drama hits Untamed and The Hunting Wives.
Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes, which comes from Joe Berlinger, popped in at number four with 3.4M views in its premiere week.
These two shows join the likes of American Murder: Gabby Petito and Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer, which were two of the most-watched shows on Netflix in the first half of the year.
Amy Bradley Is Missing has now totaled 26.2M views over its first three weeks after opening with 12.2M views and securing 10.2M views in its second week.
The three-part series, produced by Ample Entertainment and directed and exec produced by its founders Ari Mark and Phil Lott, delves into the cold case after Bradley was thought to have fallen overboard before her cruise ship docked at port, although a body was never found.
In addition to the possibility that Bradley jumped or fell overboard, theories include allegations that Alister “Yellow” Douglas, an entertainer on the Rhapsody of the Seas during the Bradleys’ trip, was involved in Amy’s disappearance, that she was trafficked after leaving the ship or that she left the ship of her own volition, and could even be living in secret abroad.
“Every single person who worked on this was conflicted about what happened to Amy … that sort of whiplash made this particularly surprising,” Mark said.
It’s clearly a case that has interested a lot of viewers, as has the Conversations with a Killer strand.
Netflix launched the strand in 2019 with The Ted Bundy Tapes, followed by The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes and The John Wayne Gacy Tapes.
Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes explores the story of David Berkowitz, who killed six people and wounded 11 between 1975 and 1977 in New York City and was responsible for one of the greatest manhunts in the Big Apple’s history. The three-part series takes viewers inside the NYPD’s desperate race to catch the infamous .44-caliber killer—and into the disturbing mind of Berkowitz himself through these newly unearthed recordings, which offer rare insight into his twisted psyche, revealing what was going through his mind as he unleashed a reign of terror in the late 1970s.
Berlinger told Deadline that Netflix clamored for more serial killer stories after the success of the Bundy series. “Once that first show was a hit, then it was a floodgate,” he said.
In its most recent engagement report, one of the interesting trends was the success of these documentaries, which are far cheaper to make than scripted series.
American Murder: Gabby Petito (Netflix)
American Murder: Gabby Petito was the streamer’s fifth most popular title for the first six months after only Adolescence, Squid Game, Zero Day and Missing You. It reached 56M views with over 120M hours viewed.
The three-part series, which is produced by Cinemart and Stage29, tells the story of the young woman who was killed by her fiancé Brian Laundrie after a road trip gone wrong. It is one of a number of shows in the American Murder strand, which also explores the killing of Laci Peterson, who was killed by her husband when she was eight months pregnant with their first child, and the disappearance of Shanann Watts and her children, and the terrible events that followed.
Another crime strand, American Manhunt, also performed well with the story of Osama bin Laden, which was the 14th most watched title on Netflix in the first six months with 36.6M views.
Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer, with 21.9M views, and Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story, with 20.2M views, were also in the top 50.
As Netflix said after posting today’s ratings, the success of these shows “proves that crime never sleeps”.
