Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Zach Cregger to Produce Netflix Adaptation of 'Torso'

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Zach Cregger to Produce Netflix Adaptation of 'Torso' · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. We are diving into a story
0:03
that is equal parts true crime, horror, Hollywood legend and
0:11
just tragic political history.
0:13
Speaker 2: It really is. For two decades there has been this
0:15
one graphic novel adaptation that Hollywood just couldn't touch right.
0:20
Speaker 1: It was deemed cursed, or too dark, or maybe just
0:23
too complicated to get right.
0:25
Speaker 2: And that is the crux of why this news is
0:27
so monumental. We're talking about the recent seven figure deal
0:31
by Netflix for the rights to Torso.
0:32
Speaker 1: The seminographic novel by Brian Michael Bendison, Mark and Draco.
0:36
Speaker 2: Exactly, and it chronicles one of the most gruesome, most baffling,
0:39
and you know, Franklin, most embarrassing unsolved serial killer cases
0:42
in American history.
0:43
Speaker 1: The Cleveland Torso murders.
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Speaker 2: Cleveland Torso murders, and the involvement, i should say, the
0:48
total failure of the legendary lawman Elliot mess So.
0:51
Speaker 1: That's the mission for you today. We need to go
0:53
beyond just the splashy news of this streaming deal. We're
0:56
going to use the graphic novel as our guide to
0:58
really perform a kind of insic examination of the history.
1:01
Speaker 2: There are few key parts here.
1:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, first the terrifying, almost almost surgically precise case of
1:09
the mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.
1:11
Speaker 2: And second the dramatic political and personal catastrophe that completely
1:17
consumed Elliot.
1:18
Speaker 1: Mess And finally we have to analyze why this project,
1:21
which defeated David Fincher of all people, has finally found
1:24
its way to the screen and who's driving it now.
1:26
Speaker 2: You know what's fascinating here is how the source material
1:30
itself frames this moment in history. It's not just a
1:32
who do in it?
1:33
Speaker 1: No, not at all.
1:34
Speaker 2: It's a really detailed look at the complete psychological consumption
1:38
of a hero, the bidding war and the final deal
1:42
which was finalized in late November twenty twenty five. It
1:45
just signals this massive faith from Netflix, not just in
1:48
the story, but in the producing team.
1:50
Speaker 1: Absolutely, the talent now driving this adaptation is exactly why
1:54
we think the curse is finally broken. I mean, you've
1:56
got this rising horror powerhouse Zach.
1:58
Speaker 2: Kreiger, fresh off Barbarian and Wat Yes, and.
2:01
Speaker 1: He's partnering with veteran producer Roy Lee. It feels like
2:03
they're signaling that this isn't going to be some standard procedural.
2:06
This is going to be a visceral, dark, psychological thriller.
2:09
Speaker 2: And for you the listener, just keep this in mind
2:12
as we go through everything. This is a case where
2:15
science failed, the.
2:16
Speaker 1: Law failed, and the hero failed.
2:18
Speaker 2: The hero failed. But and this is what's so incredible,
2:22
as we'll get into later, that historical failure might just
2:25
be on the verge of being overturned by modern technology
2:28
right now. It creates this astonishing link between the past
2:32
and the present.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so let's start with the curse itself. The history
2:35
of the Torso adaptation is I mean, it's legendary in
2:38
Hollywood circles.
2:38
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. For twenty years, the script was just passed
2:41
around studio to studio, director to director, and I.
2:44
Speaker 1: Always promised this gritty masterpiece, but just it always collapsed
2:49
before they could even start filming. It was perpetually stuck
2:51
in what we call development hell right.
2:53
Speaker 2: And the defining moment, the one that really cemented Torso's
2:57
status as a cursed project, that came in the early
3:00
two thousands.
3:01
Speaker 1: Just as that post SA seven psychological thriller wave was peaking.
3:04
Speaker 2: Exactly, Paramount optioned the novel and they attached the one
3:08
director who seemed, I mean perfectly suited to capture that
3:12
grim period atmosphere David Fincher.
3:15
Speaker 1: And Fincher didn't just you know, flirt with it. He
3:18
was deeply invested. He had the acclaimed writer Aaron Krueger
3:22
scripting it.
3:23
Speaker 2: And sources at the time were even suggesting they were
3:25
looking at Matt Damon to embody that burden struggling Elliot
3:29
nest On.
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Speaker 1: The Dream Team ready to deliver a major prestige thriller.
3:34
Speaker 2: But Fincher's vision, well, it ran headlong into the financial
3:37
reality of studio filmmaking at that time. Fincher was committed
3:41
to mirroring the noir roots of the graphic novel. He
3:44
wanted to shoot the entire film, or almost all of it,
3:47
in this high contrast black and.
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Speaker 1: White, which would have looked incredible, to capture that desperation
3:53
and the merle ambiguity of nineteen thirties Cleveland.
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Speaker 2: It would have been perfect. But here's where it gets
3:59
really interesting. The studio executives, even though Fincher's dark thrillers
4:03
were huge successes, they balked.
4:05
Speaker 1: In that era the idea of a big budget, high
4:08
profile serial killer.
4:09
Speaker 2: Movie starring an a lister like Matt Damon.
4:12
Speaker 1: Being filmed in black and white was just seen as
4:14
a commercial non starter.
4:16
Speaker 2: It was they were worried about how it would translate globaler.
4:19
You know, how much money they'd have to spend to
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markting what was fundamentally an art house visual approach to
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a mass audience.
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Speaker 1: So that caution from the studio just caused the whole
4:28
project to.
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Speaker 2: Stall out indefinitely, and Fincher, completely frustrated by the lack
4:33
of movement and the resistance to his creative vision. He
4:36
didn't just walk away from the idea. He repurposed the
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core structure.
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Speaker 1: He pivoted.
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Speaker 2: He pivoted to a different but thematically identical case, the
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Zodiac Killer.
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Speaker 1: And that pivot, ultimately is what gave us the brilliant
4:49
two thousand and seven film Zodiac.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and it shares Torso's defining narrative structure. It's this obsessive,
4:56
years long pursuit of an elusive killer that gives you
4:59
no clean resolution. It just leaves the investigators psychologically, professionally
5:03
and personally devastated.
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Speaker 1: So Zodiac became the huge success story.
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Speaker 2: While Torso just remained a ghost, a specter of a
5:10
great film that almost was. Its failure really seemed to
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confirm the curse.
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Speaker 1: And that fallout from the Fincher attempt meant that any
5:17
director who came after had to deal with the shadow
5:20
of what could have been, and.
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Speaker 2: That parade of subsequent near misses only amplified the curse narrative.
5:26
I mean, major directors kept circling this material. They were
5:29
drawn in by its depth and its historical importance.
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Speaker 1: You had David Lowry, a director known for his meditative,
5:35
often dark style, attached around twenty thirteen.
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Speaker 2: And then later you saw Paul Grengrass in twenty seventeen,
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the master of gritty docu style thrillers. He had a
5:45
script by Brian Helglund.
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Speaker 1: And even more recently, as late as twenty two twenty
5:50
twenty two, Corn Hardy, who has experienced in that specific
5:54
kind of period horror.
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Speaker 2: And every single attempt failed. They couldn't secure financing, couldn't
5:59
find the right cap, or they just plane fell apart
6:01
in pre production. It truly became Hollywood's white whale.
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Speaker 1: The project everyone admired but no one could actually land. Precisely,
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so why now, why does Netflix break this twenty year
6:11
history of failure and why pay a reported seven figures
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after an intense bidding war. I think this is where
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we need to look at content strategy, not just creativity.
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Speaker 2: Well, if we connect this to the broader picture, Netflix
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has built this unparalleled ecosystem for adult oriented historical true crime.
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Speaker 1: Right their investment in a series like Dahmer.
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Speaker 2: Which became one of their most viewed properties.
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Speaker 1: Ever, it just demonstrates that the global appetite for intense,
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character driven studies of real world monsters eat huge and
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their past work like the critically acclaimed mind Hunter.
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Speaker 2: Which ironically was also a Fincher project, right.
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Speaker 1: It proves they can handle the psychological depth that a
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story like Torso requires.
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Speaker 2: They get that the audience for dark, historical serial killer
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narratives is massive and loyal, and unlike a traditional studio,
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Netflix has the financial confidence and I think the creative
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trust to push through projects that are structurally difficult or tonally.
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Speaker 1: Uncompromising, which is exactly what Torso is.
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Speaker 2: And there's also this interesting bit of operational synergy at
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play here. Netflix has proven they're good at reviting other
7:17
longes stating difficult projects.
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Speaker 1: Like we said, they eventually worked with Fincher on his
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lawn Belt film The Killer. They know how to de
7:24
risk these kinds of projects.
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Speaker 2: Plus and this is a neat piece of logistics that
7:28
really streamlines the whole thing. Dark Horse Comics, the current
7:31
publisher of Torso, has a first look deal with Netflix.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so for the listener, what exactly does a first
7:38
look deal mean? In this context?
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Speaker 2: It basically means that Netflix gets the first shot at
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buying or developing any intellectual property, any ip published by
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Dark Wars. They don't have to enter the chaos of
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the open market right away. They get a streamlined path
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to negotiation.
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Speaker 1: So when the material is published by a partner that's
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already locked into your network, the path for adeptation becomes
8:00
dramatically clearer.
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Speaker 2: It bypasses a lot of those initial rights clearing hurdles
8:05
that can often sink complicated projects. It just mitigates the
8:09
administrative chaos so they can focus entirely on the creative challenge.
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Speaker 1: And speaking of that creative challenge, the talent attached right
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now isn't just about clearing legal hurdles. It's about setting
8:19
an incredibly dark, very specific tone.
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Speaker 2: This is a major signal about what the final product
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will be. The involvement of Zach Kreger through his subconscious
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banner is absolutely key.
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Speaker 1: He's not just a director anymore. He's a brand, a
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brand synonymous with twisted, unpredictable psychological horror.
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Speaker 2: His name alone tells us the adaptation is aiming for intensity, and.
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Speaker 1: He surrounded himself with veterans who know how to package
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prestige true crime. You've got Roy Lee, who's mastered adapting
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huge horror hits like.
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Speaker 2: It in the Ring, But crucially you also have these
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specialized prestige true crime expertise of Alex Hedlund and Nick
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on Toska through their company.
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Speaker 1: Eat the Cat, and these the people responsible for these
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deeply researched, character driven limited series like Candy and A
9:06
Friend of the Family.
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Speaker 2: The combination of Kraiger's visceral edge and Antosca's proven depth
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and true crime it suggests a product that's going to
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respect the historical record while delivering genuine scares and psychological tension.
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Speaker 1: And the final piece of insurance really is the involvement
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of the original creators Brian Michael Bendis and Mark.
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Speaker 2: And Draco serving as executive producers, which signals an intent
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towards strict fidelity to the groundbreaking source material.
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Speaker 1: Which brings us perfectly to the source itself. Why is
9:34
this graphic novel, out of all the true crime stories
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in history, the one everyone desperately wanted to adapt.
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Speaker 2: To really appreciate that seven figure investment, you have to
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understand the pedigree of the Torso graphic novel. When it
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was published as a six issue limited series by Image
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Comics between nineteen ninety eight and nineteen ninety nine, it
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wasn't just another comic book.
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Speaker 1: No, it felt like a cultural milestone.
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Speaker 2: It really was. It truly launched the modern true crime
10:00
graphic novel genre. It was a seminal work that demonstrated
10:04
the maturity of the form.
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Speaker 1: It proved that sequential art could be used for more
10:08
than just superheroes. It could be used for serious, meticulous,
10:12
and atmospheric historical investigation.
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Speaker 2: And the creative team's trajectory is so crucial here. While
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Mark and Draco is an accomplished writer, Torso came out
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just as Ryan Michael Bendis was beginning his assent right.
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Speaker 1: He was the writer and artist here, just before he
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completely redefined contemporary superhero narratives with his transformative runs on
10:31
Marvel titles like ultimates Spider Man and Daredevil.
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Speaker 2: And the atmosphere Bendis created is what captivated filmmakers. It's
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this gritty, rainslicked, shadow drenched neo noir. But what gives
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it that deep authenticity, The thing that makes it stand
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out from pure crime fiction is the depth of the research.
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Speaker 1: And Bennis's personal connection to us.
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Speaker 2: Yes, Bendus is a Cleveland native. He didn't just read
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Wikipedia entries. He drew inspiration and actual documentation directly from
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real case files.
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Speaker 1: Files that were provided to him by a former boss
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at a local newspaper, a guy named Jim Rumanesco.
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Speaker 2: So this wasn't just creative license. This was a foundation
11:10
of meticulous, on the ground historical documentation woven directly into
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the narrative framework.
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Speaker 1: That one detail just elevates the source material instantly. It
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meant the architecture of the story, the movements of the police,
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the geography of Kingsbury Run, the names of certain people,
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they were all historically precise.
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Speaker 2: And that dedication to accuracy earned the novel huge critical success,
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including Eisner Award's recognition. It confirmed its literary and historical weight, and.
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Speaker 1: Its enduring appeal really lies in that esthetic you described.
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It's often been called the Untouchables meet Zodiac Vibe.
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Speaker 2: A perfect description. It takes the time period, the celebrity
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of a famous law man and wraps it around the brutal, terrifying,
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psychological emptiness of a completely unsolvable mystery.
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Speaker 1: And the novel structural innovation is how seamlessly it blends
11:59
that verifiable fact with the noir atmosphere. The visual narrative
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isn't just invented drama exactly.
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Speaker 2: Bendis incorporated genuine historical elements directly onto the pages. You
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see reproductions of real photographs from the era, the poor,
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the victims, the shanty.
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Speaker 1: Towns, right alongside facsimiles of newspaper clippings and elements of
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real interview transcripts.
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Speaker 2: It's an immersion technique. It pulls the reader right into
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the desperate, polluted, and poverty stricken landscape of nineteen thirties Cleveland.
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Speaker 1: And the narrative hook is that the entire terrifying process,
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the investigation, the failure of the political pressure, it's all
12:35
chronicled entirely through the perspective of eliot ness.
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Speaker 2: But and this is key, this is not the nest
12:40
that cinema traditionally celebrates.
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Speaker 1: No That is the novel's ultimate strength, and it's a
12:45
reason it's so compelling for prestige filmmaking. It completely avoids
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that invincible, incorruptible, flawless.
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Speaker 2: Hero trope the when popularized by the Kevin Costner film
12:55
The Untouchables.
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Speaker 1: Instead, Bendis Sandraco give us this deeply human, profoundly flawed man.
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This ness is struggling intensely with the overwhelming pressure of
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leading a major city safety department.
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Speaker 2: He's haunted, haunted by the knowledge that he is failing
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publicly and privately, all while operating in the impossibly long
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shadow of his massive triumphs against al Capone in Chicago.
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Speaker 1: In that contrast, the national symbol of law enforcement success
13:22
placed directly into a scenario of total, unmitigated failure. That's
13:27
the key to the story psychological depth.
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Speaker 2: It transforms the manhunt into a personal descent. It's a
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story about the fragility of heroism, and it sets the
13:34
stage for personal ruin, which is always far more dramatic
13:37
than a simple capture.
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Speaker 1: So to really understand the intensity of that psychological pressure,
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we now have to slow down and dissect the horror
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he was facing what was the mad butcher actually doing
13:46
in Kingsbury Run.
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Speaker 2: Right before we even get to the killer, we have
13:51
to establish the environment. We're in depression Eric Cleveland, specifically
13:55
from nineteen thirty five to nineteen thirty eight. This context
13:59
is absolutely for understanding why this case just went cold.
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Speaker 1: Cleveland was, i mean, structurally collapsing under the weight of
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the Great Depression. The city was facing mass unemployment, widespread poverty,
14:11
and a deeply entrenched problem with civic and political corruption.
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Speaker 2: So when the butcher began his work, the city was
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already crippled by these huge economic forces.
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Speaker 1: And the location of the murders tells the whole story
14:22
of social neglect.
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Speaker 2: It does. The victims of this killer were almost exclusively
14:26
drawn from society's absolute bottom rung, the transience, the homeless,
14:31
and the working poor who lived in these sprawling, makeshift
14:34
shanty towns.
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Speaker 1: It it was hoovervilles, the hoovervilles.
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Speaker 2: Which clopped up everywhere, and the primary dumping ground was
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Kingsbury Run, a natural ravine that cut through the city,
14:43
often near the polluted Cuyahoga River and the railroad tracks.
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Speaker 1: So this area was not only filthy, but it was
14:48
a place where marginalized people would congregate and just disappear, and.
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Speaker 2: The killer exploited this extreme societal and visibility with this horrific,
14:58
almost surgical consistency. If you were a marginalized person in
15:02
Kingsbury Run, your disappearance was easily.
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Speaker 1: Overlooked, sometimes for weeks or even.
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Speaker 2: Months, exactly giving the killer the time and space he
15:11
needed to operate without any immediate scrutiny, and.
15:14
Speaker 1: The scope of the terror was staggering. Between nineteen thirty
15:18
five and nineteen thirty eight, there were at least twelve
15:20
official victims attributed to the butcher.
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Speaker 2: But historical estimates based on recovered parts and timing pushed
15:26
that number as high as twenty or even more. The
15:29
sheer volume and method of the killings earned the murderer
15:32
that chilling press moniker, the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.
15:36
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the specific, defining, gruesome modus operandi
15:40
that made this killer so unique and suggested he had
15:43
some kind of specialized knowledge.
15:44
Speaker 2: Okay, so the butcher's actions were highly ritualistic. Every single victim,
15:48
male and female, was found decapitated.
15:50
Speaker 1: They were also often castrated, and there were clear signs
15:53
of restraint and torture before the killing.
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Speaker 2: But the most technically unsettling detail, the one that really
15:59
points toward a medical or forensic background, is the macabre
16:03
preservation technique. Right.
16:05
Speaker 1: The source material details that the bodies were frequently chemically
16:09
treated to delay decomposition.
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Speaker 2: Which suggests a methodical, scientific approach to preserving the remains,
16:17
maybe to allow the killer more time with the body,
16:20
or just to ensure the corpse was unrecognizable.
16:22
Speaker 1: We're talking about precision here.
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Speaker 2: Absolute precision. The dismemberments themselves were carried out with such skill,
16:28
cutting through joints, removing tissue that the initial investigators were
16:32
convinced the killer was a doctor, a surgeon, or maybe
16:35
a highly skilled butcher.
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Speaker 1: They weren't hacked up. They were precisely taken.
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Speaker 2: Apart, right, And then the scattering of the remains, which
16:42
just added to the psychological terror of the city. The
16:45
remains were systematically discarded in pieces.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes neatly wrapped, sometimes just dumped, and over.
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Speaker 2: Those three years, torsos would just wash up on the
16:54
shores of Lake Erie. Heads would be found separately in
16:57
sacks containing human parts, would appear a long the railroad tracks,
17:01
or hidden in the debris of Kingsbury Run.
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Speaker 1: The sheer horror of those discoveries a body part here
17:07
ahead there. It created this immediate existential fear in the city.
17:12
The lack of complete bodies made the case feel simultaneously
17:15
widespread and untouchable.
17:17
Speaker 2: And critically this created an investigative impossibility for Nests in
17:21
his team, especially given the forensic limitations of the nineteen thirties.
17:25
Speaker 1: We need to remember where science was at this moment exactly.
17:28
Speaker 2: This was the era before reliable DNA technology, long before
17:32
mass computerized fingerprint matching. Ballistics testing was rudimentary at best.
17:37
In fact, many of the victims were so mutilated and
17:39
chemically treated that identifying them was just impossible.
17:42
Speaker 1: And the generalized poverty of the victims just complicated things
17:45
even more.
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Speaker 2: Many were transients with no family, no permanent residents, no
17:49
dental records. Their disappearances weren't even reported, and their identities
17:53
were lost to history before their bodies were even found,
17:55
which is.
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Speaker 1: The enduring tragedy that the graphic novel captures so vividly.
17:59
Of the twelve official victims, only two were ever positively identified.
18:04
Speaker 2: Edward and Drassi and Flo Palilo. The rest just remained
18:07
nameless John and Jane Does, adding this profound, unsolvable layer
18:12
to the mystery. The butcher literally erased the identities of
18:16
his victims.
18:17
Speaker 1: Making justice and impossibility through standard legal means.
18:20
Speaker 2: It created an investigative void, a perfect predator in a
18:23
perfect environment of social neglect and technological limitation. And this
18:28
failure of identification, this loss of humanity, is the profound
18:32
stage upon which elliot Ness was forced to act.
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Speaker 1: So when elliot Ness arrived in Cleveland in nineteen thirty
18:37
five as the director of Public Safety, he wasn't just
18:40
another bureaucrat.
18:41
Speaker 2: No, he was a national celebrity. He was basically walking
18:44
on air, fresh from his legendary work in Chicago that
18:46
saw the downfall of a capone.
18:48
Speaker 1: It secured his status as the incorruptible hero of American
18:51
law enforcement.
18:52
Speaker 2: Right His mandate in Cleveland was immense clean up a
18:55
notoriously corrupt police force and a city riddled with graft,
18:59
and it's important to remember he was initially very successful.
19:02
Speaker 1: He dramatically reformed the department, cleaned up the traffic division,
19:06
and successfully dismantled significant labor racketeering operations that had plagued
19:10
the city.
19:10
Speaker 2: He had momentum, the public trusted him implicitly.
19:14
Speaker 1: And his high status. His fame, and his absolute reputation
19:18
for success are precisely what made the Torso case his
19:21
eventual and very public undoing.
19:24
Speaker 2: When the dismemberment murder started, they became his obsession. This
19:27
case was unique because it wasn't about political corruption. It
19:30
was about pure sadistic malice, something you couldn't solve by
19:34
just busting ledgers.
19:36
Speaker 1: And despite his fame, his massive resources, and his absolute resolve,
19:40
he was just utterly frustrated. Frustrated by the lack of
19:43
physical evidence, the victim ananimity, and the sheer elusiveness of
19:47
the killer.
19:48
Speaker 2: The Torso case completely transformed his legacy. It overshadowed every
19:52
single success and ultimately tarnished his reputation in Cleveland. It
19:57
haunted him until his death in nineteen fifty seven.
19:59
Speaker 1: And his inability to crack the case led ness the
20:02
supposed symbol of incorruptible law to take these increasingly drastic
20:06
and highly controversial measures.
20:08
Speaker 2: Actions borne out of pure desperation, which targeted the very
20:11
population the killer was exploiting. It reflected the moral decay
20:15
the city was experiencing.
20:17
Speaker 1: The first major destrate act was the rounding up of
20:20
hundreds of vagrants and transience.
20:22
Speaker 2: He ordered mass fingerprinting. I mean imagine the scale of that.
20:25
Hundreds of homeless, marginalized people targeted and process simply because
20:30
they fit the profile of the victim population.
20:32
Speaker 1: A massive, unprecedented invasion of privacy, targeting the most vulnerable.
20:37
Speaker 2: It was completely fruitless, it yielded no results.
20:40
Speaker 1: But the act that truly cemented his complicated legacy happened
20:44
in nineteen thirty eight. Ness personally oversaw one of the
20:48
most controversial events of his entire tenure.
20:50
Speaker 2: The burning of the Kingsbury run shantytowns.
20:53
Speaker 1: He ordered the police and fire departments to set the
20:55
entire area ablaze. It was an attempt to destroy the
20:58
killer's hunting ground and I guess flush them out.
21:01
Speaker 2: But this act displaced hundreds of homeless individuals who had
21:04
nowhere else to go, a deeply tragic irony given that
21:08
Ness was the director of public safety.
21:10
Speaker 1: It was a massive civic failure wrapped in a desperate
21:13
act of policing.
21:14
Speaker 2: And the historical correlation is striking, But we have to
21:17
emphasize the ambiguity, just as the sources do. This controversial
21:21
act coincided almost exactly with the end of the official
21:24
verified killings.
21:26
Speaker 1: So was the killer flushed out, did they.
21:29
Speaker 2: Flee or did the burning destroy the final vital pieces
21:32
of evidence that could have led to a capture. Ness's
21:36
decision remains this dark, unsolved question that the graphic novel
21:40
uses brilliantly to explore the depths of his failure.
21:43
Speaker 1: And this desperation. It leads us to the heart of
21:46
the matter and the most compelling historical theory, doctor Francis E. Sweeney.
21:50
Speaker 2: Yes, many historians and true crime experts today point to
21:54
doctor Sweeney, a troubled surgeon and a veteran of World
21:56
War One, as the strongest historical theory for the mad
21:59
butcher the.
22:00
Speaker 1: Surgical knowledge required for the precise distmemberments. It aligns perfectly
22:04
with Sweeney's professional background.
22:06
Speaker 2: And he had been hospitalized multiple times for alcohol related
22:09
issues and showed signs of profound psychological distress.
22:12
Speaker 1: But the investigation of Sweeney was complicated by high stakes.
22:15
Speaker 2: Politics, extremely complicated. Sweeney was a relative, a cousin of
22:21
one of Ness's most prominent political opponents, Martin L. Sweeney,
22:25
who was a US congressman.
22:26
Speaker 1: That crucial family connection added immense political pressure and complexity
22:31
to an already high stakes investigation.
22:33
Speaker 2: And this political layer explains why Ness couldn't just move
22:36
forward even when he suspected he had his man. The
22:40
idea of Ness chasing a rival politicians relative meant he
22:43
had zero political capital to spend on a weak case.
22:47
Speaker 1: Ness and his team had to be absolutely certain or
22:50
they'd risk a political catastrophe that would end his career
22:52
on the spot.
22:53
Speaker 2: And we know that Ness brought doctor Sweeney in for
22:55
intense questioning on multiple occasions. What we know from the
22:58
records is that Sweeney failed called multiple polygraph tests.
23:01
Speaker 1: Right, but polygrad tests in the nineteen thirties were an
23:04
unproven novel technology, completely inadmissible as evidence in court.
23:08
Speaker 2: But Ness was privately convinced he believed Sweeney was the
23:11
mad Butcher.
23:12
Speaker 1: And this is the moment where the limits of nineteen
23:14
thirties forensic science and law just collided violently with the
23:18
legend of Eliot Ness.
23:20
Speaker 2: Despite the polygraph failure, despite the surgical background, and despite
23:24
Ness's personal conviction, he could never get sufficient hard evidence
23:28
a body, a tool, a confession to press criminal charges.
23:33
Speaker 1: And what sealed the case's mysterious status is the abrupt
23:36
end to the murders. Shortly after that intense interrogation with Ness,
23:41
doctor Sweeney committed himself to a veteran's.
23:43
Speaker 2: Hospital and later to an asylum, and the murders permanently
23:46
ceased after that.
23:47
Speaker 1: So Ness carried this profound burden of knowing or at
23:51
least believing he knew, the identity of the killer, but
23:54
being legally and technologically incapable of securing justice.
23:58
Speaker 2: He died convinced that the man respons sponsible was institutionalized
24:01
but completely free of earthly consequences for his twelve plus victims.
24:05
That is the tragedy at the heart of the Torso
24:07
graphic novel and the challenge for the film, how do
24:10
you portray a hero's deepest, most consequential failure.
24:13
Speaker 1: The fact that this deeply layered historical tragedy, this story
24:16
of failure and political intrigue, is finally making it to
24:19
the screen, is entirely owed to this new creative team,
24:22
specifically producer Zach Kreger.
24:24
Speaker 2: His involvement, given his career evolution, is maybe the most
24:27
intriguing angle of this whole deal.
24:30
Speaker 1: Kreiger's path is an amazing study and professional reinvention. I mean,
24:34
for the early part of his career he was firmly
24:37
rooted in comedy.
24:38
Speaker 2: He co founded the sketch troop The Whitest Kids You
24:40
Know and starred in their popular IFC series from two
24:43
thousand and seven to twenty eleven.
24:44
Speaker 1: He acted in standard network sitcoms, and he even co
24:47
directed that raunchy, lowbrow comedy Miss March way back in
24:51
two thousand and nine.
24:53
Speaker 2: He was a known quantity in comedy, but no one,
24:56
absolutely no one would have pegged him as the next
24:58
great psychological horror autur.
25:01
Speaker 1: And then came the seismic shift. In twenty twenty two.
25:03
Speaker 2: His film Barbarian, which he wrote and directed solo, redefined
25:07
him overnight. It was the definition of a sleeper.
25:09
Speaker 1: It grossed forty five million dollars globally on a minuscule budget.
25:13
But more than the money, the film was universally praised
25:15
for its relentless unexpected twists, its visceral at tension.
25:19
Speaker 2: And its sophisticated social commentary which was woven read into
25:22
the narrative fabric. It wasn't just scary, it was.
25:24
Speaker 1: Smart, and that wasn't a fluke. That success was immediately
25:27
followed by Weapons in twenty twenty five, which was this
25:31
multi threaded horror epic starring major talent like Josh Brolin
25:35
and Julia Garner.
25:36
Speaker 2: And that script sparked a massive, high profile bidding war,
25:40
even bigger than Torsa's, which was eventually won by New Line.
25:44
The reviews for Weapons just solidified his status.
25:47
Speaker 1: Creiger is now a bonafied, bankable horror maestro. He's a
25:52
figure whose name sells both prestige and psychological intensity, and.
25:56
Speaker 2: He is arguably one of the busiest figures in Hollywood.
25:58
He's continuing his product of partnership with Roy Lee on
26:01
the Torso project while also juggling massive directorial duties.
26:05
Speaker 1: Including the upcoming Resident Evil reboot for Sony in twenty
26:07
twenty six.
26:08
Speaker 2: Right, And this is why his influence is so significant,
26:11
even if he doesn't personally sit in the director's chair
26:13
for Torso.
26:14
Speaker 1: Kraiger's signature style, which blends high psychological tension, truly unexpected
26:19
and often bleak narrative turns, and an almost cynical dark humor,
26:23
is perfectly suited to the Torso material.
26:25
Speaker 2: The novel is fundamentally about the psychological crumbling of an
26:28
American icon. Against this backdrop of gruesome, medicalized violence and
26:33
systemic despair. Kreger's reputation suggest the adaptation will avoid the
26:37
usual pitfalls of cheap jump scares.
26:40
Speaker 1: Instead, it'll aim to be a deeply visceral, character driven
26:45
thriller that really dissects the despair of the Depression era
26:49
and the immense emotional and professional toll on ness.
26:53
Speaker 2: Think of the challenge, how do you make the discovery
26:56
of a chemically preserved torso both terrifying and profoundly sad.
27:00
Kreiger's expertise is in making the horrific feel character driven
27:04
and unexpected, which is precisely what the source material demands.
27:07
Speaker 1: So if we analyze what to expect based on the
27:10
source material and the creative forces involved, we can make
27:12
some pretty firm predictions about the narrative focus.
27:15
Speaker 2: Well. The film will surely explore the theme of the
27:17
fragility of heroism, what happens when the untouchable can't touch
27:21
the untouchable killer.
27:22
Speaker 1: It will also inevitably dive deep into the visual language
27:25
of Depression era despair. I anticipate the film will use
27:29
the squalor of Kingsbury Run the Shadows of the Flats
27:32
District and the polluted waters of Lake Erie as a
27:35
visual reflection of the city's moral and civic decay.
27:38
Speaker 2: Mirroring the strong noir atmosphere of the graphic novel.
27:41
Speaker 1: Absolutely and critically, the film will have to address the
27:45
birth of modern serial killer mythology. The mad Butcher's macabre
27:49
precision and consistent mo effectively predates the great publicized modern
27:55
cases like.
27:56
Speaker 2: The Zodiac or even the Green River Killer. This film
27:59
could position Cleveland in the mid nineteen thirties as the
28:02
chilling birthplace of America's fascination with the elusive, brilliant, and
28:06
methodical predator.
28:08
Speaker 1: The casting of elliot Ness will without question be the
28:10
most crucial decision. They need an actor who can embody
28:14
the national myth while simultaneously conveying the failure, the frustration,
28:18
and that psychological burden. You know.
28:19
Speaker 2: Names like Jake Gillenhall immediately come to mind, largely because
28:23
he successfully navigated that exact psychological obsession and emotional ruin
28:27
in Fincher's Zodiac.
28:28
Speaker 1: Or maybe a Craiger collaborator like Justin Long, who's known
28:32
for his ability to blend intensity and vulnerability, could take
28:35
on a crucial supporting role that helps ground the terror.
28:38
Speaker 2: The right actor will transform Ness's historical failure into a compelling, agonizing,
28:43
cinematic tragedy for the modern viewer.
28:47
Speaker 1: The stage is finally set for a film that has
28:49
waited two decades, a perfect storm of true crime appetite,
28:53
studio commitment, and highly specific creative talent.
28:57
Speaker 2: So what does this all mean for you, the listener,
28:59
and for the legacy of this case. We've taken a
29:01
deep dive into the layers of the Torso story.
29:03
Speaker 1: We've covered the sheer brutality and medical precision of the
29:06
mad butcher, the devastating political and professional failure of America's
29:10
most famous law man, and the.
29:12
Speaker 2: Long, difficult, cursed road this graphic novel took to finally
29:15
find a cinematic home at Netflix.
29:17
Speaker 1: The adaptation promises to be chilling, unforgettable, and unflinching, leveraging
29:22
Netflix has proven appetite for deep, complex, historical true crime
29:27
and Zach Kreger's uncanny ability to create tension and structural
29:30
surprises that stick with you.
29:32
Speaker 2: It is a story about a profoundly dark chapter in
29:35
American history that frankly refuses to stay buried.
29:39
Speaker 1: It refuses to stay buried. And here is the final
29:42
compelling piece of information we teased earlier, the connection between
29:45
this nineteen thirties failure and our modern scientific world.
29:49
Speaker 2: Right, despite this case being nearly a century old, the
29:52
historical records show that in twenty twenty four, parallel to
29:55
all this cinematic maneuvering, there were actual real world efforts
29:59
under Yes.
30:00
Speaker 1: Efforts to exhume the remains of some of the unidentified
30:03
Torso victims for genealogical DNA testing.
30:06
Speaker 2: Modern forensic technology is finally being applied to elliot Ness's
30:10
greatest mystery. It's attempting to bridge that gap that the
30:13
rudimentary technology of the nineteen thirties just failed to cross.
30:16
Speaker 1: It raises a profound historical and artistic question. What if
30:20
this massive cinematic adaptation featuring a new psychological horror maestro
30:25
dissecting the details of the failure. What if it coincides
30:28
with an actual, real world revelation.
30:30
Speaker 2: What if science finally provides the closure that eluded elliot Ness.
30:34
Speaker 1: Solving the deepest mystery that ruined his legacy. Right as
30:37
Hollywood finally brings the tragedy of Kingsbury Run to the
30:39
global screen. That linkage between history, failure and the astonishing
30:45
possibility of modern justice is the final thought We leave
30:48
you to mull Over today