David Fincher’s got all the ingredients at Netflix: his new Mindhunter is the perfect brew for an the age where people dig in deep on the “Serial” podcast and where everything seems to have the unreal echo of Keyser Söze and The Usual Suspects. Set in 1977 — the time of disco, Son of Sam and The Bronx is Burning — Mindhunter watches FBI agents try to catch a serial killer. At the center of the madness is real life serial killer Ed Kemper, who possesses the sort of insight into a sociopath’s mind that only another sociopath would have. Kempner is a sort of terrifying TV version of Anthony Hopkins’ Silence of the Lambs killer Hannibal Lecter, dishing out his menacing insight with chilling matter-of-factness. When Kemper tells investigator Bill Tench (also a real life character) that he’d like to “pick his brain,” Tench takes it literally, replying, “Well, that’s another life sentence right there.” (Fincher has always had good dark humor.)
Ed Kemper is portrayed by 6’5″ Cameron Britton who is best known for Stitchers (2015) and Camp Takota (2014). Britton’s portrayal in Mindhunter is galvanizing — he’s immensely articulate as he instructs his interlocutors in what’s important. “Matriarchal. Get that down. That’s a big antecedent,” he says. Britton has 22K followers on Twitter, a number that’s sure to grow despite his promise never to add a bio to his profile. And how’s this for a perfect little nugget? Britton’s film debut came in the TV series Unusual Suspects, in which he played Jeffrey Boyd.
