Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan (2021)

Watchseries; I read The Minds of Billy Milligan years ago in the early '80s) and if I'm being honest, I had no business reading it at such a young age. When this popped up on Netflix, I tuned right in and not 15 minutes in, have seen in a couple of recreations showing 1) what I believe to be current 2021 paper currency (the huge 100 was a dead giveaway) AND 2) Milligan being led out of his hotel room into a desert scene, complete with some sort of cactus. Strange because AFAIK Columbus Ohio isn't anywhere near a desert. And the voice-over mentions he was picked up at his home on the extreme eastern side of the city. These have taken me so far out of the narrative that I might not find my way back.

I read The Minds of Billy Milligan years ago in the early '80s) and if I'm being honest, I had no business reading it at such a young age. When this popped up on Netflix, I tuned right in and not 15 minutes in, have seen in a couple of recreations showing 1) what I believe to be current 2021 paper currency (the huge 100 was a dead giveaway) AND 2) Milligan being led out of his hotel room into a desert scene, complete with some sort of cactus. Strange because AFAIK Columbus Ohio isn't anywhere near a desert. And the voice-over mentions he was picked up at his home on the extreme eastern side of the city. These have taken me so far out of the narrative that I might not find my way back.

Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan watchseries. I've only seen the first episode and would have turned it off but it was so bad I had to continue. The interviews are over lit, overexposed and the skin tones are unflattering. The director is at least consistent in the style of making his subjects head blend into the background or placing them in front of a window that the sun is shining through. The woman in the bank vault was top lit making her look like her eyes were removed from her face. I bet she is pumped about this. Also, what are these locations and the framing? I have a great idea, let's put a journalist in a tight hallway of a jail for no reason! There is one interview with a guy in what appears to be a restaurant where I saw them use 4 different colors of light: green, blue, yellow and magenta. It's like they found a grip truck that had been robbed and stripped for parts and just used what they had leftover.

But seriously every shot is overexposed and over saturated to the point where people either look dead or like they have jaundice.

As for the editing, I had to look away as I was getting nauseous from all of the cuts, zooms, shakes, focus pulls and flares. We get it. You have a few tricks and you like to use them all at once. I couldn't even pay attention to the story due to the visual onslaught of disjointed effect heavy trash. All I took away from the story is that this Billy guy had a few personalities so they decided to interview a bunch of older folks in randomly chosen locations that make no sense. That's about all I got from the first episode. If you like watching train wrecks, you'll love this.

Honestly couldn't find a single shot that wasn't dreadfully amateur. Even the B roll was bad. The best footage in this was from the 1970's and heavily deteriorated.

I couldn't finish it I found it boring, dragged too much just like Netflix's recent documentaries/docu-series.

You know 20 min in that they unnecessarily dragged this out for length. The method of story telling is not done well and they honestly make this story uninteresting. I agree with all the reviews stating the editing is terrible and has no flow whatsoever.

Give these complicated documentaries to HBO, the masters of great docs. Netflix really dropped the ball on this. Choppy, loud background music and poor storytelling. I got to the end of the first episode but barely. It's quite boring and messy.

The story of Billy Milligan is fascinating, a serial rapist and habitual criminal, who had a unique defence, multiple personality disorder. The story is fascinating, if you have an interest in psychology, or indeed in films such as Split, there really is a fascinating story here.

My advice however would be to read the various texts published, as this production isn't good. This is the most over produced documentary series that you will ever see, the cutaways, made up footage, and interviews are all over the place, it is a jumbled mess.

Too many people are interviewed, and the information is all too sporadic, too chaotic, it makes it so difficult to follow and engage in.

There are some fascinating accounts, Billy's siblings are fascinating to hear, unfortunately the camera is zooming all over the place, and the music overtakes, which is a real shame.

A fascinating story, unfortunately it's an over produced mess, which is two episodes too long, 5/10.