Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Well-told docu examines female serial killer; violence.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
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Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
In AILEEN: QUEEN OF THE SERIAL KILLERS, Wuornos' story is one about a life of trauma and abandonment and the terrible results of that trauma for her and society. We see her close-up in interviews in prison and footage of her testifying at her murder trial. We also meet John Tanner, the born-again Florida state attorney at that time. Tanner seems to abhor Wuornos, a violent, man-killing sex worker, based largely on religious principles. Wuornos claims that she killed one victim because he brutally bound and assaulted her. The prosecutor, whose religious remarks during another trial led to a convicted killer's death sentence being overturned, claims there is no evidence that Wuornos' victim had ever acted violently, and that turns out to be false. The prosecutor is smug and unbothered when confronted with these facts. He seems equally smug and unbothered when Wuornos is executed in 2002.
Is It Any Good?
This is a disarming, well-told story about how wrong a life can go. Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers revisits the conviction, death sentence, and 2002 execution of Aileen Wuornos, a more or less unhoused sex worker abandoned at an early age by her family and subjected to traumas and cruelties most of us could never imagine, never mind survive. (Wuornos was the subject of the 2003 Academy Award-winning film Monster.)
This movie begins with highly judgmental views of Wuornos. One voice wonders how someone so "vile and not attractive" ever "got any customers at all" as a sex worker. Another opines that "I don't think that's the way our maker intended us to use our bodies." This seems designed to set up an atmosphere of bias that will meet Wuornos when she's arrested and tried. She says she was raped many times starting in childhood and that eventually some of the men she killed were victims of a revenge mindset directed against all the men who raped her rather than those individual men themselves. A fellow death row inmate reveals serious reservations about Aileen's mental health, and there are signs of that questionable orientation to reality when Aileen is on camera for the filmmaker's interviews. Her effusive broad smiles and enjoyment of the attention make it seem as if she never could have imagined all that killing could earn her this spot at the celebrity table. At times, she seems more like the guest of honor at a cocktail party than a death row inmate waiting for execution.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how violence experienced during childhood can influence the path a person's life takes. Do you think Wuornos might have led a different life if she'd been raised in a stable and loving environment? Or might she have wandered from a socially acceptable path anyway?
Some suggest that Wuornos was treated more harshly by law enforcement, the media, and the public because she was a woman and because she was a sex worker. Do you think that came into play here?
Do you think there's a prejudicial expectation among those in law enforcement that women are the "gentler" sex and therefore those who commit violent crimes are to be treated more harshly?
Do you think prosecutors and jurors may harbor prejudices against sex workers, categorizing them as immoral or ethically compromised and therefore less worthy of mercy?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : October 30, 2025
- Director : Emily Turner
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Director(s)
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Documentary
- Topics : History ( Biopic )
- Run time : 103 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : November 12, 2025
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