Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer

Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer
Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer
	US film poster
Directed by	Nick Broomfield
Written by	Nick Broomfield
Starring	Aileen Wuornos; Nick Broomfield
Cinematography	Barry Ackroyd
Release date	November 1992;
Running time	87 minutes
Language	English

Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer is a 1992 documentary film about Aileen Wuornos, made by Nick Broomfield. It documents Broomfield's attempts to interview Wuornos, which involves a long process of mediation through her adoptive mother, Arlene Pralle, and her lawyer, Steve Glazer.

The film essentially highlights the exploitation of Wuornos by those around her and questions the fairness of her trial, given the vested interests of the police.

The film was used by the defense in the Wuornos trial in 2001 to highlight the incompetence of Wuornos' original lawyer. It was through this process that Broomfield decided to make a second film, Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer.

For the feature film Monster, Charlize Theron used this film as source material, apparently watching clips in-between takes in order to perfect her character. For her performance, Theron won a Best Actress Oscar, awarded on what would have been Wuornos's birthday.^[1]^[2]

Synopsis

Cast

Aileen Wuornos as herself^[3]
Nick Broomfield as himself – Interviewer
Jesse Aviles as himself (Jesse "The Human Bomb" Aviles)
Cannonball as himself
Steve Glazer as himself
Sgt. Brian Jarvis as himself
Michael McCarthy as himself
Dick Mills as himself
Arlene Pralle as herself
Mike Reynolds as himself

Reception

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 9 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.9/10.^[4] The documentary holds a 6.9/10 weighted rating based on 3000 reviews on IMDb.^[5]