True crime documentaries have become a huge hit in the last few years.
More and more people are replacing movie night with a binge-worthy true murder mystery as viewers try to solve unique and pretty horrific cases before the end.
The latest one to go viral is American Murder: Laci Peterson on Netflix.
Advert
The three-episode documentary follows the notorious case of Laci Peterson who was murdered by her husband Scott Peterson.
In 2002, Laci vanished while eight months pregnant. Her husband quickly becomes the prime suspect but without a recovered body, there wasn't much the police could do.
This all changed in 2003 when Laci's remains and the remains of her unborn baby washed ashore in the San Francisco Bay.
Advert
According to the Netflix media website: 'The documentary uses news clips, interrogation footage, and courtroom cameras to bring the dramatic disappearance, investigation, and trial into focus.'
However, it didn't impress some viewers.
One 'crime fanatic' Reddit user posted a discussion on how it wasn't like their usual true crime docs.
The post read: 'this is about sensationalism and making a compelling story come to life which I don’t think happened here. I’m a true crime fanatic.
Advert
'One of the biggest reasons true crime is exciting is because a lot of narrators tell the stories in a way that brings mystery to it even if there isn’t any.
'A lot of these stories make you feel like you’re solving the crime with the detectives as it plays out.'
They went on to say that despite the story being a tragedy, 'you literally knew everything you needed to know in the first ten minutes.'
Advert
They continued: 'Zero red herrings. Nothing unique. This story is also very old and has made its rounds in the true crime community long ago, so 99% of the details were nothing new if you had heard about it before.'
That said, some viewers liked that there wasn't supposed to be a twist but instead cleared up some previous theories.
'I don't think it was supposed to be super compelling, it was supposed to be a counter to the Paramount doc that was created to support the conspiracy theory that Scott was innocent,' they wrote on a Reddit forum.
Others praised it adding things like: 'I thought it was good in that I walked away from it knowing so much more about Laci because of the time they spent on her.'
Advert
One person took a more balanced view and suggested that some viewers' expectations of the doc might be too high, commenting: 'I think a lot of true crime junkies have unrealistic expectations of Netflix documentaries. They are largely aimed at a more mainstream audience than people who watch two hour interrogation videos on YouTube and listen to podcasts about every famous case.'