A true-crime documentary is in the works about Mark Twitchell, based on the Steve Lillbuen book The Devil’s Cinema. The doc will be directed by Sam Hobkinson, best known for directing the Sundance Film Misha and the Wolves.
Twitchell was a Canadian filmmaker who was inspired by the TV serial killer character Dexter Morgan, from the Showtime series Dexter. He lured John Brian Altiner to his garage and killed him before dismembering his body and dumping his remains down a city sewer. Twitchell was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.
Twitchell posed as a woman on an online dating site to lure men to his garage. Thankfully, his first victim was his last. Just a few years prior, in 2008, Twitchell made a short film called House of Cards, in which a married man is lured to his death by a serial killer, the exact situation he played out with Altiner.
Hopkinson said the doc will be “an immersive thriller, that lives in the uneasy world between fact and fiction, a movie that will place the audience in a world that becomes terrifyingly real.”
The project comes from David Permut, the producer behind Face/Off and Hacksaw Ridge. Permut told Deadline:
“Sam Hobkinson’s interpretations of true crime stories have had such cinematic flair and style in his extraordinary and critically acclaimed work in documentaries. I think we have found the perfect filmmaker to capture this riveting and cinematic story.”
Later this month, CBS will feature Twitchell in an upcoming episode of the true-crime docu-series 48 Hours.
