TikTok film critic Stephen Nothum says A24’s “Primetime” isn’t the Chris Hansen biopic everyone assumed. He reads it as a “Dracula” adaptation built to turn Hansen into a monster myth.
His first clue was the logo. Nothum says the two pointed M’s look like fangs, and he says the designer more or less confirmed the reading when he asked.
The parallels pile up from there. Dracula lures victims through dreams; Hansen lures his through internet chats.
Dracula rules his castle; Hansen rules the sting houses. Nothum argues Hansen’s entrance in the film copies Bela Lugosi’s in the 1931 “Dracula” almost shot for shot.
The timing is the heart of his theory. Stoker published “Dracula” in 1897, right before the 20th century. “To Catch a Predator” premiered in 2004, right at the start of the 21st. Nothum frames both as mythological monsters marking a threshold: Dracula bridging the pre- and post-industrial world, Hansen bridging the pre- and post-internet, pre- and post-reality-TV one.
The people who made the movie have circled the same idea. Robert Pattinson plays a fictionalized Hansen, and director Lance Oppenheim has called Hansen a “mythological being” and the film “docufantasia,” not an authorized biopic. Costar Skyler Gisondo said Pattinson decided Hansen’s life force came from the big takedowns, “almost a vampiric thing.”
Hansen, who wasn’t involved and has called the finished film “absolutely a fictional portrayal,” noticed it too. After the trailer, he described Pattinson’s version as “darkened up and almost vampirish.”
