Karla(2006)

This movie is not well-known, but it is based on the true story of Canadian serial killers Paul Bernardo and his wife Karla Homolka(Shown in Picture Below) who killed 3 teenage girls. The controversy over these killings are that Karla tried to maintain that she was forced into it by her husband and that she was not a willing participant, but the video tapes that they made together proved otherwise. This movie stars Laura Prepon(from That 70's Show) as Karla and Misha Collins as Paul.

The movie is basically about her and the fact that she is up for parole. She is talking to a doctor about the killings which include the murder of her own sister, Tammy. There is no point going into the plot as it is mostly fact. This movie is a bit one-sided in that it makes her out to be the victim of Paul's domineering personality. I am not saying that he didn't hurt her, but she was a participant in the murders of these young girls. She is made out to be unwilling, which I do not believe to be the truth. She also showed no remorse or she never apologised for her actions which says a lot.

The movie shows her meeting Paul and falling madly in love with him and then discovering that he is not as perfect as she first thought. They begin a dangerous relationship. Paul is out raping girls and she knows about it, but she is scared to leave him. He even rapes her own sister and she participates. As far as I am concerned, she should still be in prison for that alone. Paul is a suspect in some rape cases and he is not caught by the cops. They don't have enough evidence to go on. So, the couple starts picking up young girls and bringing them to their house where they are raped and killed on videotape. This goes on for a while and Karla is bashed by Paul and he is shown to the the one who started everything, but in my opinion, I think that she was as willing as he was to murder, if not more so.

In the case of her sister, evidence has shown that Karla dressed up in her sister's clothes after her death and pretended to be her. Surely that provides enough evidence to say that she is sick? The movie goes on to chronicle the murders of the two girls and the eventual capture of the two killers. The cops had taken a DNA sample from Paul years before and now they find evidence that he is the 'Scarborough Rapist'. Karla filed charges against her husband when he hit her and that made the cops investigate him again. They eventually made a deal with Karla- in exchange for only 12 years in jail, she would testify against her husband about the rapes and the murders. The videotapes were only found later on and by then it was too late to change her sentence. This caused outrage in Canada and many people were disgusted that this killer should only get 12 years for being as much to blame for the killings as her husband.

















She went to prison and was released in 2005. She is now free to live her life unlike those victims that she killed and she has given birth to a child. Meanwhile, her husband is still serving life in prison- a sentence which she should have been serving also. I don't believe that she did not participate in the killings of those girls and it has been proven that she did but they messed up her trial and she ended up coming out of it with only 12 years. Many people still feel very bitter about this in Canada and I would say that the families of her victims must feel very bitter indeed. I thought that this movie was going to be a fair and balanced view of the facts, but I thought that it sided with her and that is why I am going to give this movie a 3/10.