'Devilsdorp': Satanic Krugersdorp killings laid bare in true-crime doccie

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REVIEW | This four-part Showmax series about the murderous 'Chosen by God' cult will have you watching with open-mouthed shock

One thread of series director David Enright's four-episode show follows the cult and its transformation from dedicated Christian protectors of Cecilia Steyn — a seemingly hapless former Satanist in need of constant spiritual assistance to ensure she wasn't dragged back to hell — to zombie-like soldiers in service of the insane murderous plans she hatched in her shabby flat opposite a Krugersdorp hospital.

The other thread traces the efforts of a mullet-sporting, endearingly dedicated police detective to get to the bottom of the perplexing links between two series of murders committed four years apart, and the journalists who became obsessed with reporting the details of the case and the twists and turns of its sensational trial.

Along the way there are traumatised family members of the victims, shadowy corrupt cops, a brash but dogged prosecutor, patiently explaining psychologists, witness-protected informers and a reporter who was so smitten with one of the suspects that she lost her job and marriage because of it. Full of eerily quiet overhead shots of the unsuspecting town that belie the madness unfolding within a small section of it and interviews recorded in dimly lit rooms and a recurring image of a strange art installation filled with objects and photographs related to the crimes that, depending on which way you look at it, is either a cross or a pentagram, it's all suitably ominous and deeply unsettling, in spite of the incredulity you may initially have towards some of its melodrama and...

What it lacks in broader examination of the sociological peculiarities that create the circumstances for the stark oppositions between Satanic panic and religious zealotry in places like Krugersdorp, it makes up for with a well-paced unravelling of all the elements in its complicated web and an effective use of the familiar but useful cliffhanger to keep you watching with increasing “what-the-hell” open-mouthed shock until its satisfyingly nail-biting courtroom drama conclusion.

 

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