Anything crime has become all the rage in recent years, notably when the pandemic hit. What are all these people staying at home supposed to do? They turn on a documentary show about some serial killer in the 70s and its spiral from there. And although there are a multitude of crime shows out (NCIS, SVU, 911, etc.), there is a lack of severe crime films. More specifically, the “whodunit” stories. We, as a society, are pretty hooked on a murder story as a whole. Look at the Gabby Petito case from a couple of years ago. It got national coverage because people were so invested in the story. 

So what exactly goes into making a murder mystery? In an interview with Spark & Fire podcast a few years ago, Rian Johnson explains his process of making the Knives Out series.

“There was the initial implanting of the murder mystery forum as the scary adult genre, and it’s something that I just loved. The next step was thinking about whodunits and thinking about what works about them and what doesn’t work so well. There’s a little bit of “Okay, we’re gathering more clues. Okay, and they have another murder to keep things going.” But there’s a certain point where you’re just like, “Okay, let’s get to the point where the detective explains it to us because we know we’ll never be able to guess it.” That led to this notion that, “Well, okay, what if I did a whodunit, but I fabricated the plot in a way that would suit a movie where you can’t just be gathering clues? You have to have a protagonist who is in danger that we worry about and have the mechanics of a thriller.”

Within some of these films, an element of humor begs the question, do people need light-hearted comedy to get through the complex subject of murder? With murder happening every day and in a lot of entertainment, people are so immune to the idea of death on screen many don’t even bat an eye. Knives Out, Glass Onion, Clue, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit exemplify how humor is embedded into the mystery. 

What about the more severe murder mysteries? What makes them so enticing to watch? Most likely, it’s from how serious the films are. Seven, with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, deals with a serial killer who kills in the name of the seven deadly sins. There’s little to no room for humor in that one. But that’s what makes it an intense watch. With each death, the stakes get higher and higher until the end, when the idea of letting the villain win and doing what’s right is at stake. 

The driving force of these films is the characters themselves. Can the audience connect with them, and are they compatible with the other characters? Johnson says, “You need a broad spectrum of people that we actively dislike, people that we like but then become disappointed in, each of these characters is a fragment of that personality of the movie. If you think about kind if you sat on a shrink’s couch and all the different fragments of yourself, of your own mind regarding a certain issue and all the different ways you feel about it and all the different ways you feel about it that you wish you didn’t feel about it, that you want to work against because you want to be a better person, all of those different things, but all kind of lining up to one coherent personality, those are the characters.”

The most important part of the mystery is how well the detective is at their job. How iconic can they be? Hercules Poirot is one of the most famous fictional detectives, but why? Is it perhaps his accent? Or can he see the tiniest details and not leave anyone out of the suspect list? The way he connects all the dots at the end that he’s been hiding since the beginning makes the audience amused, to say the least, that some of them were tricked or saw coming and are glad they were right. Either way, Poirot is a force to be reckoned with and an inspiration to many detective roles. 

The film adaption of Clue is a notable example showcasing the many different characters one mystery could have. Each character has the energy they bring to the mystery that no one is safe. Usually, people can detect who they think the murderer is early on, but Clue makes it so anybody can be the murderer and leaves the audience guessing. Since it’s based on a board game and can have many endings, movie theaters had to screen certain conclusions when the film was released. The theaters would have to announce which ending they were showing with “ending A, ending B, or ending C.” On the DVD, however, they put all three endings in there so the viewer can decide which one they think happened. 

Some other famous murder mysteries include:

• Rear Window

• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

• Death on the Nile

• Murder on the Orient Express

• The Name of the Rose

• The Mirror Crack’d

With a mix of more light-hearted mysteries following Poirot in Express and Nile to more profound mysteries like Tattoo and Rose, murder mysteries can range all over and still leave the audience captivated by the story. It’s a game for them to try and figure out the murderer before the ending, which makes the category so enjoyable for people. In a world of crime and mystery, the audience wants to solve the problem and be the hero, just like the characters.