Crimes of the Century (2013– ) User Reviews

Some Terrible Sound Choices, Good Story Recaps

[gavin6942 · 6/10 · 20 January 2015]

Let me just start with what another reviewer wrote: "the producers thought that style was more important than the substance, so they apparently let some clueless film students with schizophrenia and severe cases of ADD do all the editing and sound." Well, that may be a slight exaggeration, but only slight. The voices distort for no reason, and there are some bizarre close-ups on faces and blurred moments that ought to be clear.

One can also question who handpicked these stories. Certainly "Oklahoma City" is worth an episode, but then the episode on "Waco" appears after it. Why? It would make more sense to talk of Waco first to put Oklahoma City in context. And then somehow the Kennedy assassination did not make the cut, but Amanda Knox (who will be forgotten in five years) did? Sure, Kennedy is too big for one episode, but Amanda Knox a "crime of the century"?

What is with the editing?

[spencerash-83741 · 6/10 · 20 June 2021]

This show would be SO perfect if the voices didn't change every so frequently and maybe change the music in some scenes. It's a great show just hard to watch a little because of the stupid voice changes.

The Vocal Edits killed the quality of this series.

[AnnahMH · 2/10 · 2 July 2020]

If these shows teaches us anything it isn't about criminals, evil masterminds, or col blooded killers. It teaches us about the importance of hiring a knowledgeable, experienced, and talented sound and vocal editor.

Interviewees were not taken seriously as their comments were spliced and diced to the point where their vocals were pushed through a gimmicky "phoneline" filter to give a "creepy vibe."

It failed spectacularly. Every four minutes or so, the gimmicky filter kicked in....in mid sentences, at the last couple of words at the end of sentences....basically anywhere and everywhere. The only time when you knew the filter would not be applied was whenever the main narrator was talking.

The vocal editing sounded like they hired the producer's 11 year old kick to take control of the sound board.

It's not worth watching. None of them are. They ruined every episode with the same gimmick. It is so thick with it, you lose focus of the actual story

Editing and sound from Hell

[GrowTesk · 1/10 · 29 April 2014]

This series contains several interesting stories. Unfortunately, the producers thought that style was more important than the substance, so they apparently let some clueless film students with schizophrenia and severe cases of ADD do all the editing and sound. Their attempts at being artistic and trendy absolutely ruined the finished product, rendering the show unwatchable. Shame on CNN for allowing this, and let's hope none of those creepy film students that are responsible for the editing and sound ever graduate. If this green-lit production is a sign of things to come, well, all I can say is that would be more disturbing than any of the subjects of the series....and this includes the Uni-bomber and the DC Sniper.

Wow

[mozzmanau · 1/10 · 28 June 2020]

Had to turn this off after 5 minutes for due to the terrible editing. What the hell were they thinking. Distorting voices, framing video in small frames, chopping the video every 2 seconds. This went from something that could have been good to a massive disaster in second. Please don't ever how the editors again. No one should be made to suffer from this horrendous editing ever again.

Obnoxious, grating presentation of interesting topics

[saledgele · 2/10 · 9 May 2014]

I need to second GrowTesk's appraisal of the editing skills displayed in this series. I find the writing and subject material very interesting and logically planned, but whoever was in charge of the decisions to end all talking head sound bites with a stylized, sound modulated black and white close-up for dramatic emphasis needs to be drummed out of the business. Whoever hired them needs to be slapped and fired. The snapshot sound effects for every still was overused and passé. The overbearing and intrusive 'background' music was discordant and obstructive. This type of hackneyed, lazy, immature treatment of the topics practically ruined the experience for me. It actually made me angry after a short while, and I had to stop watching.

Let the stories speak, not the editors.

[nmcelmury · 1/10 · 23 September 2014]

I haven't logged into this site in a long time, but I felt I just had to after attempting to watch this.

The stories, the content and the witness testimonies are more than plenty to carry this show, however it is so bogged down by the SpikeTV, ADD type editing, I couldn't even make it through the first episode.

I lasted about twenty minutes before the image of some editor using the "sweet" new filters, audio tuning, and jumpy, rave like transitions crept into my head and annoyed me beyond comprehension.

Please, spare yourself. You can look up all of these stories on wikipedia and save yourself from a seizure or an aneurysm.

Overused sound effects

[inrmvysb · 2/10 · 9 March 2021]

Totally agree with the last review. The overused voice effects at the ending of every snippet of the interviews, ruins the doco. I had to turn off before the end of the first episode, checked another one and have turned if off for good. Surely Ridley Scott, having an outstanding reputation as he has, should have forced someone to re-edit this series before it went to air. Hopefully the person who thought it would be a good idea, never gets to direct their own project, god help us.

Oh the Editing

[hellsyee23 · 3/10 · 16 December 2020]

The most obnoxious editing I've ever seen in a documentary. No clue why anyone would do this.

Extremely Off-putting Sound Editing

[cyndi_fan247 · 2/10 · 9 December 2021]

There is a really bizarre feature of the show where the sound changes in volume and clarity and becomes hushed and fuzzed out in the middle of a sentence. This is an intentional choice by the sound editors and it honestly makes the show almost unwatchable. The information presented seems interesting enough, but it's impossible to ignore the assault on my ears.

Editing on both speed and crack...

[imdb-51790 · 1/10 · 2 May 2021]

One of the most truly obnoxious, unwatchable, car crash mess of a documentary show I have had the misfortune to stumble across. Barely 2-3 seconds passes before we are subjected to a cut to a close up shot or other visual *delight*.

As if this wasn't bad enough, they then play with sound too, either echoing interview snippets in a pseudo haunting manner, or throwing in some thrash metal to exaggerate tension.

As another reviewer stated - interesting topics made utterly unwatchable by amateurs.

Bad, bad editing

[burgephoto · 1/10 · 9 December 2021]

I am trying to watch "Crimes of the Century" on HLN. I say "trying" because, for some reason, some idiot editor got the bright idea to use a filter to make the last few words of interviewees sound like a storm trooper from the Star Wars movies. Way too distracting! The video editing is choppy and too frenetic. Apparently, this is based on the belief that the general public has a very short attention span, so frantic editing and weird sound effects are what's needed to hold the viewer's interest. This assault on my senses is needed to hold my attention? I hope this won't be the future of crime documentaries. Thanks, but no thanks. I want quality documentaries that are not produced to resemble MTV music videos.

Never

[hecallsmecorndog · 5/10 · 3 July 2021]

Literally never have I been so annoyed by the editing of a docuseries. I love true crime; I've never seen it ruined so badly. What were they thinking?

True Crime or Rock n Roll Doco? Who can tell

[michellepitiris · 4/10 · 22 August 2021]

This could've been really good but for some reason the editors/directors thought editing it look like a damn MTV music documentary was a good idea. Damn fools. Ruined a perfectly good true crime opportunity.

Sound Edit

[SerenaNekoti · 1/10 · 22 December 2021]

I see that all of the others who left reviews feel the same as I do about the framing and that annoying voice distortion!

I TRIED to continue watching but that was entirely too distracting. It reminds me of some "medical" dramas. You can tell they got a new toy "a blood squirter" because it's OVERUSED and oftentimes used a half a dozen times in one episode.

Stop it!

Grunge Rock just too much

[imknight · 1/10 · 29 May 2022]

While the subject matter is interesting the Grunge Rock soundtrack is over powering that it became a distraction . What were these producers thinking ?