Before the dust of controversy has even begun to settle on this season’s biggest Netflix’s true-crime offering – which was heavily criticised for re-traumatizing family members of the victims of Jeffrey Dahmer’s odious offences – the streaming giant has already churned out another dramatization of shocking crimes from recent history.
Who is Charles Cullen?
The Good Nurse tells the true story of Charles Cullen, America’s most prolific medical serial killer, who’s reported victims were all patients under his care at various hospitals around New Jersey and Pennsylvania who he murdered by lethal drug overdoses and other medical interventions. Although Cullen confessed to murdering 40 patients, his death toll is estimated to have been ten times higher. Now 62, he is in prison in New Jersey and ineligible for parole until 2388.
Is The Good Nurse a true story?
Much like The Watcher, another of Netflix’s October offerings, the screenplay was adapted from an exposé. Journalist Charles Graeburg published The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder in 2013, a decade after Cullen’s arrest, and was the first to take a deep dive into his heinous crimes. Now, in true Netflix fashion, the streaming giant has turned to the book to mine some seriously gory content to fulfil their customers’ appetites for true-crime.
When is The Good Nurse out?
The Good Nurse is streaming on Netflix from 25 October.
Is The Good Nurse showing in cinemas?
Unusually for a Netflix film, The Good Nurse is also showing in select Everyman cinemas in the UK from 25 October.
Who stars in The Good Nurse?
Taking on the role of Cullen is two-time Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne. Opposite him is Jessica Chastain, who won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2022, in the role of Amy Loughren. Loughren was Cullen’s real life friend who was instrumental in the investigation which finally put him behind bars. World class acting is very much guaranteed.
Speaking about being cast in the role, Eddie told GQ magazine, ‘Charlie was really two different people.
‘People have described him as “dissociating,” and when he did, his eyes would go in different directions. I spent about three days in the mirror trying to do that.’
Also featuring are Noah Emmerich, Nnamdi Asomugha and Kim Dickens. It’s been directed by Tobias Lindholm, a Danish director best known for his Oscar-nominated Danish war drama A War.