GLADIATOR DAYS: ANATOMY OF A PRISON MURDER
2002

March 15, 2002
HBO
USA
English

Documentary about how murders are committed behind bars by inmates, many of whom are in rival race-related gangs.

I am a jaded filmgoer. I'll admit it right now. I have seen more murders, rapes, swearing, bloodshed, dismemberments and the like than any sane person should. It still surprises me when movie companions jump or wince or say ‘oh my god’ when they see brutality played out on the screen. I chuckle to myself when filmmakers are touted as 'brave' because they showed violence or frank sexuality in a film. I guess it takes a lot to make me turn my head. I was okay in AMERICAN PSYCHO and HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and all the autopsy shows on HBO.

This film made me turn my head. This film showed me an image that right now, nearly two weeks later, I still can’t shake out of my mind. I’ll let you know when I describe it so that you can skip it if you want.

The story is about a white guy who is intelligent and well-spoken and was put in prison for killing a guy in the Nevada desert. A girl he knew from the neighborhood asked him for help in keeping a creepy guy away. Instead of scaring him, our protagonist took him out to a desolate area and shot him, leaving the body behind. In a RIVER’S EDGE type move, they all began taking friends out to see the body until the police found out. The girl was put in prison as was the guy and his accomplice. Once in prison, he decided that he’d fight back at every opportunity to avoid the daily rapes he saw going on around him.

Every time I hear about life in prison, I realize that my suburban white ass wouldn’t last two seconds. I’d find a way to kill myself before I got there. But that’s beside the point here. The guy fought back and earned the respect of the Aryan Nation, which is thought to be the largest U.S. prison gang.

This particular murder was over something that I can’t even remember, it was so insignificant. The filmmakers have videotape of the actual murder taking place in the cellblock. We listen as the guards nonchalantly ask for medical help and even though there is one guy with one weapon (a knife), they wait a full ten minutes before storming the block with several dozen swat guys. The victim was still alive the whole time they were waiting for backup. One guy held down the man (who was black) and the other stabbed him more than sixty times. We hear interviews with the families of both the victim and the killer. We hear from the district attorney who is trying to get the death penalty for the killer. We listen to the guards refer to the inmates as scarcely human.

This was interesting, but its not like we thought that prison life was easy, did we?

STOP READING NOW IF YOU’RE SQUEAMISH.

Now the nitty gritty about the scene. It’s weird to watch a guy die on film. What we have here is a snuff film, plain and simple. We’ve seen them on other documentaries, that’s no big deal. I started watching the videotaped scene while counting the stabs. It appeared that the guy was holding a small knife, perhaps two inches in length. The camera is far enough away so that you don’t really see too much blood and because he’s being held down, the victim isn’t twitching much. He is stabbed mostly on his back and shoulders as the victim rolls up into a ball to avoid the knife. Remember, the action is pretty far from the camera. Then the killer begins walking away, but notices that the guy is still moving. The killer is yelling, as is a guy behind bars who is watching, but the victim is eerily quiet, even at the beginning of the attack. Here’s the thing that keeps me up at night. When the killer goes back to continue stabbing, he aims for the guy’s skull. He has to use more force to ‘break’ through and we can see that the target isn’t as easy as the back was. At one point he pulls out the knife to stab again, but the guy’s head moves with the knife, as if its stuck in his skull and the killer has to yank it out, sort of like when you get a pick axe stuck in concrete or an axe stuck in a block of wood. The victim’s head moved off the floor as the guy was pulling the knife out of his skull. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before and I was shocked at being shocked. I tried to watch it again in slow motion, which usually makes the impression a little weaker, but it was the same. The guy got his knife stuck inside the skull of the other guy. I hope I can forget I saw it.