A breathless new documentary series has just entered the Netflix catalog. While the four-part program is largely reminiscent of the successes of Making a Murderer, The Keepers or Amanda Knox, do not expect a corruption story involving crooked police officers. The streaming platform tackles this time a case worthy of the darkest detective novels. With The Geniuses of Evil , get ready to dive into a thriller that mixes pizza delivery, Machiavellian intelligence and mental illness. With a corpse in the freeze as a bonus.
Welcome to Erie, a friendly town of 100,000 people, lost in northern Pennsylvania. Nothing very exciting, except its Siberian tiger zoo and maritime museum which, on their own, are all the local pride. Until the beautiful day of August 28, 2003, when the city became world famous.
A wacky heist
It all starts when a pizza delivery man hiding an unidentified object under his t-shirt shows up at the bank. The man, who answers to the sweet name of Brian Wells, religiously hands the cashier a kind of three-page essay indicating a curious procedure to follow. Basically, the guy claims the tidy sum of $ 250,000 under penalty of blowing up the bide in public. It is important to emphasize that the guy took care to bring himself back with strong arguments.
In any case, the authorities are quickly alerted. The delivery man finds himself outside in the middle of the hood, kneeling and handcuffed, alone, a dozen guns pointed at him. The strange individual seems rather serene despite the situation, until an unpleasant regular rattling begins to be heard. His face suddenly decomposes. He screams for help. "You followed the instructions? Found the key? Help me!". The rattling accelerates. Like a countdown announcing the inevitable approach of the mower, an explosion sounds. The man falls to the ground. Inanimate. Three minutes later, the deminers will finally enter what can now be called a crime scene.
On the side of the police, it is the most total misunderstanding.
So much for the synopsis of the evil geniuses. A script that looks like straight out of the incipit of a modern-day Agatha Christie. Or an episode of Kamulox written under LSD (if the Kamulox were prepared sober). In short, all this to say that the docu-series gives itself the mission to retrace the highlights of this investigation for the least disconcerting.
A documentary filmmaker in the role of the detective
It was while watching his TV, coming across these awful images of a helpless man, desperately waiting for death, that Trey Borzillieri decided to create The Geniuses of Evil. Convinced of the innocence of this poor pizza delivery man, the director does not hesitate to call him a "hostage". As you can see, Borzillieri will end up conducting his own investigation, alongside the police.
The documentary filmmaker will take 15 years to complete the series on the case of the "Pizza Bomber". 15 years is an extremely long time. This is the lifespan of a national identity card in France today. To tell you. That's no small thing. Borzillieri will therefore be personally involved in the case, gathering archives and interviews for years. He even went so far as to forge close ties with one of the main suspects: the very uncomfortable Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong.
Without spoiler, Borzillieri's docu very largely designates Marjorie as the demonic mastermind behind this whole operation.Just take a look at the (scary) montages used for the promotion of the documentary to realize this. It's quite simple, we only see her.
A case with many suspects
It must be said that Marjorie does not look very sharp anyway. Indeed, the suspect is lugging around with a few pots and pans on her buttocks. Bipolar, unable to keep a job, endowed with above-average intelligence and serious daddy issues. But there's worse. It turns out that five of his ex-companions died in curious circumstances… And the naughty girl has always gotten away with not a slap on the wrist. Curious. Are we dealing with the classical profile of the praying mantis? And if she did, is she necessarily guilty in the story of the "Pizza Bomber"? Nothing less certain.
Because Marjorie is not the only suspect in this story. Her neighbor and friend Bill Rothstein accuses her of killing her boyfriend. Yet it is in the freezer of good old Billy that his corpse is hidden. And for some time now. While knowing that the bugger seems to know homemade dynamite. Coincidence? Yes.
And that's not all. There is the colleague of the delivery man, whose sudden and unexplained death can only seem suspicious. Not to mention Bill's roommate, with a criminal record provided. Or Marjorie's fishing budy , which talks about killing for money…
Evil geniuses or an evil manipulator?
But now, all these beautiful people are not convincing enough according to the director. For Borzillieri, there is no doubt that the terrible Marjorie is behind this Machiavellian plan.A bias that Télérama accuses him of, and rightly so. As the story progresses, the director's point of view becomes more and more present. His arguments seem implacable, and yet… Following his instincts, he unfortunately forgets some crucial tracks. The pizza bomber, whose behavior seems downright strange for a hostage, could also have a share of responsibility in this capillotracted case. A scenario largely neglected by Borzillieri who prefers to attack the witch Marjorie. Why not.
It doesn't really matter. What we will remember from the geniuses of evil is the unhealthy fascination that we draw from them by chaining episodes, without even realizing it. The series holds perfectly in suspense. It must be said that between all these protagonists all more deranged than each other, it almost feels like a season of American Horror Story. Except that we are not in fiction there. Perhaps this is what makes the docu so captivating, bringing viewers together around the same question: what tortuous mind would be able to come up with such a twisted plan??
A robbery that turns sour, mysterious disappearances, a morbid treasure hunt… The geniuses of evil will probably remain one of the most what the fuck cases in U.S. history. We warmly thank the series for letting us know about it.
