The Clovehitch Killer

The Clovehitch Killer is a 2018 American coming-of-age thriller film directed by Duncan Skiles in his directorial debut, and written by Christopher Ford. It stars Dylan McDermott, Charlie Plummer, Samantha Mathis, and Madisen Beaty. The film was mostly inspired by the story of real life serial killer Dennis Rader, also known as the BTK Killer. It premiered at LA Film Festival on September 22, 2018, and received a limited theatrical release on November 16, 2018, distributed by IFC Midnight. Plot 16-year-old Tyler Burnside lives with his devout Christian family in a small Kentucky town. The town and its residents are haunted by the memory of the Clovehitch Killer, an infamous serial killer who bound and strangled 10 known female victims before apparently disappearing 10 years earlier. Tyler takes his father's truck one night to see a girl, who finds a bondage photograph between the seats. When word of the photo spreads among the other teenagers in Tyler's church and scout troop, they ostracize him, believing him to be a BDSM fetishist. Tyler, meanwhile, begins to wonder if his father, family man and community leader, Don Burnside, could have something to do with the Clovehitch Killer. Tyler investigates Don's private shed and finds a hidden compartment containing bondage magazines, along with a Polaroid photograph of a beaten and bound woman. Fearing that his father might be the killer, Tyler befriends a teen outcast and amateur Clovehitch historian named Kassi and asks for her help. Kassi is initially skeptical, but they link the photo to a known Clovehitch victim and find blueprints to a BDSM dungeon in the shed. When Tyler explores his house's crawl space, he finds a box containing the driver's licenses of the 10 Clovehitch victims and 3 other women, as well as more Polaroid photographs of beaten and bound women.