Karla

Misha Collins who portrays Paul Bernardino in this film stated that he could not sleep while filming this movie. His portrayal of the cold hearted killer was chilling and top notch acting. He was Paul. This is one of those rare instances that when you think of the real killer that this movie is based on, you can only picture Misha Collins in your mind. That is how good he is in this film.Laura Prepon is a revelation also. It is truly brilliant acting when you can say so much and not speak at all. She has the ability to speak with her eyes, and that is truly a talent. I know nothing of the real Karla, but Laura makes her seem both sympathetic and pathetic. We see her only as a woman in love and willing to do anything to keep the man she loves. She is most probably sick, yes, an accomplice to murder, yes. But your heart hurts for her because of Prepon`s performance. At least mine did.There is no gore in this film but it didn't need any. The psychological horror was enough. Conscience and morality. Where would we be without them? More than likely we would be living the lives of Karla and Paul. The film's message is clear: be careful what you do for love. Because in the end, love may have nothing to do with it. I highly recommend this film for the heart felt performances. I applaud the film makers for making this film despite many protests against it. And I can only hope that Karla finds the peace that she stole from all those families of the victims. One wonders that if the actor portraying Paul could not sleep at night, what does the real Karla see when she closes her eyes? And is she perhaps still being continually punished in her own mental prison despite being free? One can only wonder.

Good movie very entertaining.

I believe that the first time that I learned about Paul Bernardo was while watching the show "Wicked Attraction." The story almost didn't seem real, it was so outlandish, and so twisted. After watching that episode and watching some YouTube videos, I actually was quite convinced of the following: Mr. Bernardo is worse than Ted Bundy. Why? Well, it seems to me that Mr. Bundy didn't "toy" with his victims too much; he was "nice" enough to kill them quickly -- at least most of the time -- while Mr. Bernardo treated his victims like mice, and he wasn't really much of a playful cat while doing it.But after doing a little research -- currently, I am reading the book "Invisible Darkness" by Stephen Williams (I am only about 1/4 through, but it seems to be a terrific read so far; Mr. Williams is a very good writer, no doubt about that) -- it appears that a lot of people think that Karla Homolka is worse than Mr. Bernardo! Perhaps it's because most serial killers are men; perhaps it's because Ms. Homolka should have helped protect the females that Mr. Bernardo tormented; perhaps it was for other reasons that people have this belief. I'm not completely sure.But here is the rub. When you get into these types of arguments, you're really devolving into a moral equivalence fallacy. Does it really matter who's worse, really? And is it even possible to know? Couldn't it be the case that they're all morally depraved, and therefore it just doesn't really matter?But I have seen a few reviews around on "Karla," and a lot of people don't like this film because, in their opinion, it puts Ms. Homolka into too good of a light. A lot of them wanted this film to slam her instead of trying to explain why she did what she did. But that is not the purpose of film, really. Film is to entertain, even while it is hard to say that this film is completely entertaining due to the subject matter. And even though Misha Collins is pretty good as Mr. Bernardo, I believe Ms. Prepon is the true star here, and really is allowed to show her acting chops with this performance.Don't allow yourself to get sucked down the moral equivalency drain, if you decide to watch the film. Instead, watch it for Ms. Prepon's performance. While it may be arguable how bad Ms. Homolka really was or still even is (while she supposedly is living in paradise now somewhere in the Caribbean), I think it is not very arguable that Ms. Prepon gives a very powerful performance in this role.

"Karla" is a small, fairly low-budget film that rather quietly recounts the story of Karla Homolka, wife of serial rapist and murderer Paul Bernardo. Being somewhat familiar with their story, I anticipated it would translate well to film. For the most part, the film succeeds in providing a realistic portrayal of a battered wife, whose husband managed to maintain a semblance of normalcy and elude capture for a few years. The tone of the film is fairly understated, which seems to contrast somewhat with the story. These were some horrific, disturbing events that might be shocking, though they were also true. Director Joel Bender deserves credit for not making them overly dramatic by adding stylized violence or ominous music, as so often happens in films that deal with this type of material. The actors also deserve credit for not overacting and hamming up their performances, which often occurs in horror and suspense films. Perhaps out of respect for the families of the victims, this film is not exploitive or sensationalized. If one watches this film expecting a prurient, American-style horror film, replete with blood, gore and gratuitous nudity, one will find the experience disappointing. I was, nonetheless, a little disappointed with the film, though not for the above reasons. It is pretty clear that Karla Homolka was abused by Paul Bernardo and that he perpetrated some atrocious, unconscionable acts. I cannot comprehend why abused women stay with their men, though I know it does happen. Karla Homolka was (and perhaps still is) a deceitful, manipulative individual, who knew her husband was raping and murdering young women; yet, she did nothing about it until her own life came into jeopardy. Even though she decided to stay, that doesn't provide rationale for condoning his raping and murdering these women. The end of the film contains an epilogue, which refutes much of what was portrayed in the film. It states in part that she has expressed no sympathy for the murdered girls, yet she is portrayed in the film as being at least moderately sympathetic toward them. She also did not appear to be too emotionally hurt by her abuse, as though the filmmakers could not decide what to make of her and consequently decided to write the character without much of a personality. It seems her character is based solely on a credulous, verbatim reading of interviews with her so that she comes across as stoic, detached and passive. Perhaps in reality she is emotionless and inured to her environment, though here she is presented so innocuously that it makes me wonder how "Evil has a beautiful face" was chosen as the tagline. Her character provides the impetus for the story since it is told from her perspective, which makes her lack of definition rather unfortunate for this film. Character issues aside, the film has too many slow-motion scenes, which gives it a little made-for-TV feel. Although no subtitles are included, the DVD does have several deleted scenes that are presented by the director. After hearing his extremely dry, insipid introductions, I understood how Karla's character came to be so underdeveloped. Contrast this film with "Monster" for a good example of how a person's motivations and experiences can be parlayed into an interesting, yet insidious character. For a different perspective of these characters, read the books "Invisible Darkness" or "Deadly Innocence."

Was a crazy movie

solo per cultori di M.C. (che, per primo non ama questo film). E' un film crudo e violento (tratto da una storia vera). M.C. è così bravo da fare veramente paura. Si è spaventato da solo :-D Avrei dato 5 stelle per la sua interpretazione, ma non sarebbe stato un giudizio obiettivo.

I first became fascinated by the Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka case when I had to study it in my high school class on Canadian Law in 2005. The Ken and Barbie killers. It was the only part of the whole course that wasn't completely boring. It was also the same year Karla was freed from prison. I watched the French CBC interview she gave the night she was freed (what a stupid move for such a hated woman I would've thought dead by now). I also read almost all the books and watched several documentaries about the case too. I was much more interested in Karla than in Paul. Simply because sadistic serial rapists/killers like Paul, as sad as it is to say, are a dime a dozen. But Karla was unique. She was a young pretty little enigma from our own Canada, who also happened to be a sadistic serial rapist/killer. Some psychiatrists that have evaluated her say she's pure evil, others say she's an innocent victim, and some came out saying she's a complete mystery. I personally think she is a person who happened to have been born without a conscience, like some people are born without limbs or vision or hearing. I think had she never met Paul, she wouldn't have done anything like this in her entire life. But she did. And she has no remorse for what she did, at all. Neither does her family. In Stephen Williams' first book about the case, Invisible Darkness, it's documented that, although her family appear to be nice normal people, they didn't really seem to care about what she had done. They defended her, stuck by her, and her mother, Dorothy, was heard to have said "Well the girls are already dead, so might as well party" at Karla's going away party before she went to prison. My theory is that the whole Homolka family is psychotic.First time I watched the movie, I didn't like it. I was disappointed that the facts had been twisted the way they were. But the second time I watched it, I understood the whole point of having it be her side of the story. Because there are certain parts we don't know for sure exactly how they happened (the deaths of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French not being videotaped), there are now three sides to this story: Karla's, Paul's, and the truth. Being told from her lying mouth was the only way they were able to make this movie. That, and also because Karla's compliant victim defense adds another layer of complexity to the story which might make it more interesting for some. She's still crazy, but it's a different kind of crazy you see. Since then, this has become one of my favorite movies. It really is well made and well acted. If it had been received better and not totally slandered by Canada (as a Canadian myself, I say you can't have a problem with this being based on a true story without having a problem with Bonnie and Clyde or Schindler's List), I think there could've been a possibility for Laura Prepon to have maybe even gotten an Oscar Nomination for this role. She probably thought it was going to be her big breakout role in Hollywood. And it could have been, especially after Charlize Theron received critical acclaim and an Academy Award for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster. But now she'll be remembered as Donna Pinciotti from That '70s Show, which is what I'm sure she was trying to avoid by taking on such a challenging and dark role. But she played the murderous bitch perfectly, especially during the evaluation scenes between her and her psychiatrist, Dr. Arnold, who served as a proper mediator for her unreliable narration. In a way, she was playing two different characters. Both the Karla who's been reported as having an "indifferent, haughty and irritable" personality, and the compliant victim Karla from her version of the story. The real Karla was obviously not that good an actress.I've watched this movie with friends who knew nothing at all about the real case and they all liked it even though they thought it was sick and disturbing. But as sick and disturbing as this movie is, it's actually toned down through the movie's editing, as compared to what happened in real life. Almost every time I will watch the scenes of the psychotic rapes, torture, and murders of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French (renamed in the film out of respect), I will cry. Although, one particular part always makes me laugh for some reason; when Karla mentions Demerol to Dr. Arnold, he asks her if she wants some. She then looks him dead in the eyes with a hateful expression on her face and just calmly says, "No". I don't know why, but that part always cracks me up! This movie has some flaws, as most movies do. For example, there are some minor omissions and a couple of names have been changed due to legal reasons. It's not perfect or a masterpiece by any means. And it doesn't have a moral at the end of the story, other than love makes you crazy. But it is a very good movie that seemed to get a lot of negativity that wasn't necessarily deserved. It is much better than it gets credit for.

Karla is a dark, mind twisting masterpiece! Misha Collins is Terrifying, Breath-taking and Evil and in my opinion he out does Charlize Theron's performance in monster. It gives you a shocking view into the mind of an abusive, manipulative psychopath. The acting is outstanding, captivating and at times very disturbing.

I was unable to view the film due to “regional” play issues. The lunacy of letting a sadist go free because she testified against her sadist husband, and regional dvd issues simply means nothing is real. Great movie I’m sure😑

I found this film quite graphic and shocking at times but felt it was important for it to be portrayed this way as an understanding of why the crimes were so horrific. I enjoy true life stories and found this interesting although disturbing as well.