'Boston Strangler' filmmaker stayed away from 'hard-boiled detective' serial killer story

When Matt Ruskin started researching the infamous Boston Strangler serial killer case, thinking it could make a great movie, the filmmaker was adamant that he "didn't want to make a movie about a serial killer, just to make a movie about a serial killer."

In the new movie Boston Strangler (now on Disney+ in Canada, Hulu in the U.S.), Ruskin takes the case of this 1960s Boston-area killer, believed to be connected to the deaths of at least 11 women, and chronicles the horrific events through the eyes of the two women, journalists Jean Cole (Carrie Coon) and Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley), who committed to bringing this terrifying story to the public.

“I just couldn't get inspired about telling the hard-boiled detective version of this story,” Ruskin told Yahoo Canada. “Then I heard a really brief interview with Loretta McLaughlin ... and I discovered that she was one of the first people to connect the murderers, one of the first journalists to really break the story.”

“In the process of reporting on the story, with her reporting partner Jean Cole, she actually gave the Boston Strangler his name. ... I was really taken with Loretta and Jean’s story and it felt like there was an aspect of their story that was really worth telling, as a way to revisit this case."

'The goal is to really try and paint a picture of who they were'

What's clear in Boston Strangler is that McLaughlin and Cole are the real heroes. They fought to put together the pieces of serial killer case, despite many of the men in the Record-American newsroom adamant that these women didn't actually have a story, but they were happy to use McLaughlin and Cole as a sort of publicity stunt. Ruskin also tried to balance the work these journalists did to report on the case with the reality of the newsroom, and their personal lives at home with their families.

“For me, every film starts with a character and I think the most resonant stories are character driven,” Ruskin said. “So the goal is to really try and paint a picture of who they were not just in the newsroom or not just with respect to the information they were able to track down, but how this story affected their lives and where they were coming from.”

Interestingly, Ruskin himself had a personal connection that also helped him tell this story. After reading Cole's obituary, he saw she had two daughters and realized a friend of his is related to the late journalist.

"Once I made that personal connection, I was able to talk to both Loretta and Jean's children, and get a sense of who they were as people and as journalists," Ruskin revealed. "The more I learned about them, the more I grew admire them and really felt like it was a story worth telling."

Ruskin, in working with several seasoned actors, including Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, Chris Cooper and Alessandro Nivola, recognized that he's "not precious about anything" when it comes to collaborating with his actors.

“I always just want to make things better up until the last second,” Ruskin said. “We didn't get an extensive rehearsal period for this film, but I was able to talk with every actor about their scenes and their characters, and do some rewriting based on their notes."

"Then there's just always this discovery process when you go to shoot something, where something that you wrote just doesn't make any sense, or once you're in the physical space you see things differently. I embrace the opportunity to improve things up until the last second.”

If there's one thing Boston Strangler really proves is that no matter how much time has gone by, our fascination with true crime remains consistent.