“The Clovehitch Killer” (2018) focuses on a Kentucky suburban Christian family as the son, Tyler (Charlie Plummer), begins to suspect that his father, Don Burnside (Dylan McDermott with the aid of a prosthetic gut and facial hair), is the titular serial killer who was never caught and stopped killing. The BTK Killer inspired the story.
“The Clovehitch Killer” is divided into three acts: the son’s questioning, the father’s life and then the resolution, which is where the film takes a hard left into fantasy and departs from the realism of the earlier acts. The plot appeals because it combines true crime dramas with a sardonic twist on popular culture’s fascination with teenage detectives from Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys solving cases that adults cannot.
Tyler’s sexual awakening sparks the investigation. While he does not have experience, he is instinctually repulsed when he stumbles on his father’s BDSM photograph. “The Clovehitch Killer” is ostensibly focused on an investigation, but the subtext is how our American Christian culture pathologizes normal teen development, especially sexuality, while providing cover and bolstering the authority of predators. I normally do not like following boy protagonists, but the effect of purity culture on girls is well known and how it can cultivate toxic masculinity in boys, but I am not as exposed to media focused on boys who are trying to buck the system. Tyler is the guilty one under constant surveillance and suspicion in his community so his investigation is his way to clear his name and shift the guilt back on the one who deserves it. The movie is unconcerned with distinguishing BDSM from a serial killer’s sexual predilections and will probably anger people in that community because BDSM is conflated with deviant, dubious behavior. The son has an implicit outrage that he is saddled with the burden of his father’s stigma. It arrests his development and frustrates his desires. He must quietly obey and tolerate receiving instruction from the last person who should be imbued with those duties.
“The Clovehitch Killer” is dominated with arrested communication. When Tyler talks, people interrupt him, assume they know what he is going to say or openly accuse him of speaking in bad faith. He discovers quickly that his community is inhospitable, and he cannot rely on family, friends, or leaders. Community is a type of prison for the innocent.
In the Bible, there is the concept of a white sepulcher, which gleans on the outside, but is the veneer for death. Tyler’s father, home and long-term relationships are like white sepulchers because they present a standard, unremarkable and bland façade, but hide taboos, which is why some shut down Tyler’s attempts to speak the truth. Others in the community, like his mother, Cindy (Samantha Mathis), never interrogate the surface and are unwitting cover stories and enforcers. Tyler does not have a lot of healthy models of who he wants to become. His only hope is another outcast, Kassi (Madisen Beaty), who lives on the edges. Kassi is seen as the other for not being a Christian, using profanity, being an amateur profiler and not ever being with family.
Even though “The Clovehitch Killer” lays on the whodunnit foundation of sexual satisfaction from murdered women, the underlying fear of the film is for Tyler’s safety. Does Don pose a physical threat to his son? While Don is physically deteriorating, Tyler is beginning to develop into a young man. Disguised as rough housing and affectionate teasing, Don dominates Tyler by putting him in headlocks and dancing with him. Without the suspicion, these moments would seem sweet, but there is an implied abuse as he walks behind Tyler with a gun and swings a hammer near his head. Tyler does not condemn his father until he confirms his father’s bad intentions underlying his physical interactions with his dad. For Tyler, Don’s real threat is personal, not an act of protection for women though it is the cover story. The movie is really a coming-of-age story about becoming a man and beating his father. It is a fantasy for young men who suffered under less extreme versions of exiling and abuse like the young boys did from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were pushed out of their communities so the older men could have a monopoly of power.
There is also the question of Tyler’s identity forming at an impressionable age. Will Don successfully manipulate Tyler into protecting his father and family over the innocent victims. While the characters in the film are obsessed with whether Tyler is a sexual deviant, including his friend and self-appointed warden, Billy (Lance Chantiles-Wertz), Tyler segues from concerns over his father’s identity to how to handle this secret. The options are to discard his suspicions and try to live a normal life which means more innocents will die, call the police and hurt himself and his family or stop his father. In America, sex is horrifying, but violence is accepted. A pastor asks, “Where’s Tyler Burnside? Cause the Tyler I know wouldn’t resort to violence to settle his disputes.”
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In the last act, “The Clovehitch Killer” suggests that being a vigilante is an acceptable solution. I love a solid vengeance story, but the idea that a movie does not see how patricide is almost as problematic as being a serial killer blows my mind. Instead of allowing the authorities to enforce the law and the victims’ families to get closure, Tyler’s protecting his family’s reputation and turning the tables on his father are prioritized. It baffles me that once his dad dies, the pervert accusations evaporates against Tyler. I understand that if the father’s identity was revealed, it would probably increase the ridicule, but I do not think that his father’ death would eliminate it. Sure Tyler does not get off on hurting women, but his formative years are established with murder then deception. This move does not bode well for his future. He has a double life like his father and is only enforcing his community’s toxic dynamic of suppressing the truth for a veneer of respectability. He displaces his father as the man of the family, not a child, and escapes the surveillance and suspicion of his community at the exact moment when he should trigger it. The family is less functional because Cindy must work, and Susie (Brenna Sherman), Tyler’s sister, begins to rebel after Don’s death, but their place in the community is cemented.
The third act is less absorbing than the prior two because it backtracks to reveal what really happened during the second act. When Kassie reveals her backstory, it felt redundant even though it was never told earlier. The most important detail is that she was present during her mother’s murder. While I admire the kids’ ingenuity, Tyler still wasted the family’s money by pretending to go to leadership camp, and the camp not calling to say, “Where the hell is Tyler” defies logic. It was hard to suspend disbelief that the last victim would not tell police that kids rescued her even if she did not remember their names.
I also wanted answers about what really happened to Uncle Rudy (Mark A. Nash) because I suspect that he did not get hurt in a car accident, but discovered that his brother was the killer. So Don’s devotion to Rudy was like a silent trophy, a secret gloating. I also would have loved to know what Cindy meant when she referenced Don’s “problems.” Because I do not know anything about types of knots, I wonder if there is a deeper significance to choosing a clovehitch.
