Netflix's Newest True Crime Doc Already Got a Rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

Summary

• On February 9, Netflix released a new true crime documentary, Lover, Stalker, Killer.
• Created by Sam Hobkinson, the film recounts the macabre case of Liz Golyar, who terrorized her partner, his family, and the family of the woman she murdered by pretending to be the latter.
• The movie was shocking for its twists and turns, and its score on Rotten Tomatoes was an impressive 100%.

True crime fans are never short of content, and it's not because streaming services are seeing a huge demand from fans of conspiracy investigations in the vein of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Charlie Kelly. Sadly, the reason for such a large number of true crime projects seems to be the fact that completely insane and sometimes unbelievably creepy situations worthy of their own nonfiction book or unbiased movie happen on a daily basis.

And while the true crimes become the subject of parody, as in the satirical mockumentary American Vandal, Netflix quietly continues to add to its library of films that recount truly terrifying events full of mind-bending twists and turns. While it seems that no one is surprised by such documentaries anymore, the new Lover, Stalker, Killer, which joined the service just a few days ago, is already a shocking discovery on Netflix, with a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The New Phobia of Dating App Hookups

Lover, Stalker, Killer was directed by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Sam Hobkinson, who in 2018 co-directed The Kleptocrats, a documentary about a group of Malaysian white-collar workers, including former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who were implicated in a money-laundering scandal for stealing nearly $3 billion from Malaysian government funds.

Hobkinson also has a critically acclaimed film coming out in 2021 called Misha and the Wolves, which follows the case of Misha Defonseca, who became famous in the '90s for his Holocaust memoir, which turned out to be fake.

But back to Lover, Stalker, Killer. This is a story about a love triangle that turned out not to be a love triangle at all. This is a story about a stalker who turned out to be a victim, and a victim who turned out to be a stalker.

In 2012, Dave Kroupa met Liz Golyar on a dating website. It was more of a casual relationship without a strong commitment, so after Kroupa established a non-exclusive relationship with Golyar, he soon met Cari Farver. Only Farver soon disappeared from Kroupa's life, while continuing to send him uncomfortable text messages that contradicted their arrangement. Golyar also became the subject of harassment, even surviving a house fire that killed her pets.

Unfortunately, this is where the madness begins. The investigation reveals that Farver was killed long ago, and that the real stalker all along was Golyar, who impersonated Farver and even set fire to her own house. Now Golyar is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder and arson.

Well-Made Documentary About a Disturbing Case

Critics have praised the new documentary, giving it a perfect score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Reviewers who have seen the film have noted that Lover, Stalker, Killer doesn't offer anything fundamentally new in terms of narrative or cinematography, but that doesn't make it any less fascinating. The main merit was Sam Hobkinson's ability to present a cohesive story that can still maintain a tense suspense and keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

The audience rating was a bit more sobering at 74%. The main drawbacks of the film, according to the viewers, turned out to be its predictability (which speaks more to the incompetence of the police officers involved in the investigation), as well as a huge amount of screen time for Dave Kroupa, who gave a very one-sided account, although the interviewers could have clearly paid more attention to the family of the victim, Cari Farver.