Occult Crimes (TV Series 2015–2019) Poster

(2015–2019)

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6/10
I don't thing a lot of reviews here are being fair
greg-goremykin4 March 2020
I think a lot of reviewers are being hung up on pronunciations and such as an overall reflection on the production, and that is very close-minded. Maybe living in Canada has given me enough exposure that those are just people speaking English with a heavy French accent, and is no way a reflection on their intelligence or expertise. If you want to watch a show that involves international crimes of this nature you need to temper your expectations over minutiae like that as it's unlikely an American production team would ever be outward looking enough to report of the crimes this series does.

I'd say the production values were par for the course or a bit worse, and they pulled off the premise of showing crimes with some sort of occult angle, and this is where people are being unnecessarily offended almost it seems, as the series' use of the term occult reflects where the average person off the street would hear the word and the first thing that would pop into their thought is "occult". The series didn't seem to me to be making any moral judgments at all, so those complaining about this are setting up straw men to attack.

And with things like D&D, when you play it it does put you in a mindset where you collaborate closely in a highly calculated way, it's how you play effectively, where that vast majority of people wouldn't be affected negatively at all by that. But the person with antisocial personality disorder (and any highly suggestible people around them) could be very negatively affected by learning to plot out killing something and the rush that comes with that in-game, being a hunter could trigger someone in the same way, and it's a sad statement that D&D carries a stigma of "occult" in the public imagination and hunting doesn't, but blaming the producers for this seems very odd to me.
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1/10
Only 4 out of 10 episodes actually about the Occult
casi-hamilton9 January 2018
Pro Tip: Goth/DnD do not equal occult. Sure sometimes there's some overlap...but 4 goth kids in a car jacking gone wrong is not an occult crime. This show covers money laundering, serial killers, sexual deviants, and crimes of passion, but it doesn't really have a lot of occult in it, over all. Some of the episodes try so hard to make the occult connection that it's almost laughable. Oh, they were playing an online role playing game as they talked about killing someone...that makes this an occult motivated crime. No. it doesn't. I honestly don't know why I kept watching this show, it was just...bad.
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3/10
Gimmick-driven and badly researched but still interesting
mriordanobannon8 June 2017
This is just your average crime documentary TV show. It doesn't go much into details about the "occult" and several of the crimes have extremely loose connections to occult material/beliefs. That's not exactly a huge problem but it doesn't make the show shine.

What really pulls the narrations down, however, is the narrator and voice-overs. They continually mispronounce words such as Samhain, Nosferatu, macabre, and vampirism - words which at least one person on the production staff should have known or taken the 10 seconds involved to research. It really shows that those involved in the show didn't have a remarkable interest in its content, they were simply interested in producing a mediocre crime show with a gimmicky twist.

I do give them credit for looking at cases outside of the English speaking world and including a lot of non-English speakers in their interviews (which are translated into voice-overs which makes it almost impossible to hear the original speaker, so even though I speak some French I couldn't attest to how accurate the translations in those cases were). If not for this show, I doubt I would have ever heard of those cases.
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2/10
Do some research.
karjack30 May 2017
Not only is the information regarding goth, roleplaying, and other subcultures is dismal (hint: most people in these groups are perfectly harmless, responsible adults), but the utter lack of research into the terms is kind of hilarious.

Dear narrator, Samhain is pronounced SOW-en, not SAM-hayn. Nosferatu is pronounced Nos-fer-AH-too, not Nos-FER-ah-too. Macabre is pronounced ma-CAHB, not ma-CAH-bruh.

Nothing says 'I have on idea what I'm talking about' like not knowing how to say simple terms.

Other than that, it follows the true crime show format, and the stories are interesting. It's just presented by hopelessly clueless people.
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4/10
Its not bad but.....
meshalrivera18 July 2017
The show appears not to be American. Which i enjoyed because serial killers and cults presented were mostly new to me

Though the occult ties are loose in some cases and not always well researched, some could be considered down right insulting to the cultures and subcultures discussed. The way certain words are pronounced at time by the narrator and translator is certainly quirky to put it nicely. But the most bothersome thing to me is in the Chicago Ripper episode the black victim survivor either has the worst stage makeup ever or is a white woman in black face. Its offensive.
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4/10
Unintentionally funny
geneomick27 October 2017
Apparently "trash metal" is part of the Gothic subculture. Despite the fact that it's a true crime show, one can't help but chuckle at the idea that the people who put the show together sound like your concerned parents from the 1980s who watch too much Geraldo and have a really poor grasp on the words they are using. Don't listen to the trash metal and play Dungeons and Dragons, it'll turn you into a Satanic Gothic vampire! The cases themselves are pretty interesting and disturbing, but it's hard not to focus on how clueless the show's producers and narrator sound. I can't help but wonder if the staff were all homeschooled by fundy parents during the Satanic Panic.
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1/10
Disappointing and insulting.
A badly researched series that focuses on blowing up stereotypes of subcultures and using religious fanaticism rather than psychological evaluation to emphasise the wrongness of the criminals involved.
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2/10
Sensationalist Garbage
lancehol3 June 2018
There are many glaring mistakes and poor production in just the first episode alone. The use of a computer voice doesn't inspire any credibility. The second issue is repeated inability to correctly identify The Church of Jesus Chris of Latter Day Saints calling it The Church of Latter Day Saints, The Church of Mormon. If the maker of this series makes these glaring mistakes it brings into question any credibility.
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1/10
Dubbed commentary
deankaysjr19 August 2018
I can't stand watching dubbed interviews and that's the whole thing!
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