Dorothea

America’s endless parade of historical serial killers gets a new float in honor of an unsung murderer in Dorothea, the killer bio-pic written and directed by Chad Ferrin. Dying in prison, the elderly Dorothea Puente (Pat McNeely) decides to spill her guts about all her misdeeds. After recounting the abuses that fell upon her as a teenager (Patty Hayes), she then tells how she fell into prostitution and check bouncing. After stints in jail, the older Dorothea (Susan Priver) opens a rooming house, where she would rob her tenants. When her actions catch up with her, Dorothea starts solving her problems by killing people who have problems with her criminal behavior.

Over the years, Dorothea poisons dozens of people, including Betty Palmer (Ginger Lynn), Ruth Monroe (Brinke Stevens), Very Faye Martin (Sara Ballantine), and Everson Theodore Gillmouth (Robert Miano), most of whom were recovering alcoholics whose social security checks she keeps for herself. As her life story unfolds, the horrors of what she went through start to pale against the horrors she visited upon those who crossed her path.

Dorothea is very much in the tradition of the serial killer DVD wave during the turn of the century, when a crop of very well-made bio-pics on mass murderers ruled the video store shelves. Ferrin goes further by using the same narrative format as I, Tonya, with characters directly addressing the audience during the actions onscreen. This gives the viewer the opportunity for more identification, especially with the victims, who are fleshed out before being snuffed out.

Susan Priver plays Dorothea Puente, tending to her garden in Chad Ferrin’s Dorothea.

“Dorothea starts solving her problems by killing people who have problems with her criminal behavior.”

It also creates more revulsion for the central subject, as the murderer’s cavalier attitude toward her killing is on full display. Priver does an outstanding job in her ghoulish performance, making your flesh go cold with the easy talking evil she delivers. Even her humor is tinged with horror, as all the warmth she transmits makes her actions all the more repulsive. The cult stars like Lynn and Stevens get to show off their serious acting chops, breathing life into their characters and then breathing it right back out.
The only troublesome aspect of Dorothea is that she kills a lot of her victims in ways that just aren’t that cinematic. Death by poison is still death, of course, but it doesn’t have a lot of horrendous visuals that would be needed to draw the gorehounds. All the scenes work and Ferrin hits that Scorsese sweet spot where the time just flies by, like in Casino. However, it is hard to justify committing your time toward a serial killer you have never heard of if there isn’t something artrocious enough waiting to be seen. No, I wouldn’t cut a thing the way it stands. However, next time Ferrin would do well to find a way to work some splatter showcases at key moments, like the long lost eye gouging scene that overshadowed Casino’s reputation for years. The murders are chilling but not spectacular, with lots of great acting but not so much visceral visuals. Maybe this is just the tug of war between the true crime genre and the horror genre. What is there is pretty good, there is just not enough milking of monstrosity Dorothea may just be your cup of poison, even if it only comes in skim versue whole.