For the final week of January, Jenn and I are once again discussing a fictional adaptation of spree killer Richard Speck. Last week we talked about Violated Angels, a Japanese film, and this week we’re looking at an international co-production of the Chicago story, which is set in Belfast, Ireland.
In Born for Hell (1976) – sometimes referred to as Naked Massacre – Cain Adamson (Mathieu Carrière) gets stranded in Belfast en route home to the US following his tour in Vietnam. Destitute and mentally unwell, Cain breaks into the apartment of a group of nurses live and proceeds to sexually assault and murder them over a single violence-filled night.
What could be a straightforward text, however, becomes something much more politically and historically relevant due to the inclusion of the Vietnam war and the Troubles – a fraught 30+ year conflict in Ireland. What’s fascinating is that audiences don’t need to be familiar with the specifics of these conflicts in order to understand the film (though it obviously benefits if you do).
The film’s sensational violence is extremely challenging to watch, but, as written by Clement Woods, Fred Denger, and Denis Héroux (who also directs), Born For Hell is much more than an exploitation film. It’s a surprisingly nuance consideration of how violence infiltrates society in different ways and the cost of turning a blind eye.
Next week, Jenn and I leave behind Mindhunter villains to tackle a more timely topic: athletes embroiled in crimes and murder, starting with the first of two weeks of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. We’ll have two episodes: one on 30 for 30: The Price of Gold (2014) and another on the NBC made-for-TV movie, Tonya and Nancy: The Inside Story (1994).
Want even more Murder Made Fiction? Be sure to check out the pod’s Patreon feed, where we have ~130 hours of content including episode by episode coverage of Mindhunter season 1, plus episodes on 2025’s most notable true crime documentaries.
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