A case that remained a mystery for nearly thirty years. The desperate search of one brother for his sister. And the agony of those who are left behind by a chillingly brutal crime.
True Crime continues to be a popular genre for podcasts documentaries and adaptations. Most fail to focus on the victims or their families. Thankfully, “Dark Woods” centers on the people affected by a serial killer while avoiding sensationalizing the tragic events. Based on the true story of an enigmatic killer stalking victims in Lower Saxony in Germany, the series, written by Katja Wenzel and Stefan Kolditz, feels accurate and respectful. Although there are typical elements found in police procedurals like red herrings, it’s interesting to see different federal police agencies not cooperating and archaic German laws which can obstruct investigations.
Thomas Bethge (Matthias Brandt), grey-haired and wrinkled, is a retired federal police inspector haunted by the disappearance of his sister. He reflects on the last twenty-nine years trying to solve the mystery. Beginning in Hamburg in 1989, the Berlin Wall is nearly kaput and Thomas, obviously younger, is taking down a prominent mobster in the city’s Red Light District. After the arrest, Thomas’s department and family attend a formal ceremony announcing his new role overseeing a special operations unit tasked with ending organized crime. His sister Barbara (Silke Bodenbender) arrives, saddened by a recent separation but does her best to keep the mood upbeat. Afterward, Barbara leaves in her slick Mercedes SL convertible and pulls up to a warehouse where she approaches her estranged husband Robert (Nicolas Ofczarek). He promises to buy her a new home and begs her to not cause a scene in front of their teenage daughter. Barbara is still distraught but exits before causing any more issues.
The story moves to a middle-aged couple being intimate where they are confronted by a man wielding a small-bore rifle. This scene recalled the harrowing moment in David Fincher’s “Zodiac” that featured a couple having an idyllic picnic before being attacked by the titular hooded serial killer. A prior double murder in the forest brings Anne Bach (Karoline Schuch), a young attractive detective on her first day with the Wesenberg police department. Bach meets fellow detective Jan Gerke (August Wittgenstein) who’s somewhat friendly but ignores her claims of hearing gunshots. Incredibly, this actually happened, while the police were at the first crime scene, the killer fired off the shots that would lead them to the second double murder in the Forest. Four bodies, and no answers; the small and inexperienced department begins to get overwhelmed.
After identifying the bodies from the first murders, Wesenberg’s lead inspector, Lohse (Karsten Mielke), holds a briefing. Bach hypothesizes two or three perpetrators are involved which upsets Loshe and punishes Bach by making her tell the surviving daughters their parents have been killed. Back in Hamburg, Thomas is hosting Barbara and offers her to stay as long as needed. Eventually, she gets sober and everything is looking promising before she suddenly vanishes. Thomas begins coordinating with Bach which reveals bureaucratic issues within her department and major negligence towards the Chain of Custody.
Set over a twenty-nine-year period, the story has more time to capture the emotional toll for everyone involved. Not everything works though, in particular, the subplot involving Thomas and Barbara’s mother becomes redundant. This is more than a police procedural. Its blending of history, nature, and folklore is shown with bodies in twigs, handmade totems, and hidden rooms containing banned Nazi paraphernalia. During one scene, Gerke tells Bach an urban legend alleging Henrich Himmler, the architect of the Holocaust, was buried in the forest by an American sergeant after his suicide. The woods, like many forgotten rural places, hold secrets and unknown forces that always have a way of surfacing unexpectedly.
Available to stream exclusively on TOPIC Thursday, May 13th
