Original Screenplay by Brian Godawa
A brilliant serial killer videotapes his debates with college faculty victims. The topic: His moral right to kill them.
Herman Mudgett thinks he is God bringing in the apocalypse, which is why he is called “The Millennium Killer.” When Mudgett escapes from a hospital for the criminally insane, Dr. Joseph Kallinger, the psychiatrist who testified on behalf of Mudgett’s insanity, is called in to help profile him with Detective Van Til, the cop who originally caught Mudgett. Their bitter pairing intensifies when Kallinger exploits Mudgett’s case for his book on criminal behavior. And stakes increase when one of Kallinger’s female students, with whom he is having a secret affair, is drawn into the danger. And then the videotapes start to show up. Mudgett captures distinguished college professors and debates with them. His proposition: “Give me one valid reason why I should not kill you, and I will let you go.” As Mudgett dismantles their reasoning, he proceeds to dismember his victims, recording it all on video. The method to his madness is soon revealed: Mudgett’s murders are a forensic argument, proving himself to be guiltless to the cop and sane to the psychiatrist. Catching the killer is not enough to win this debate. The heros will have to both face their inner demons.
But then it’s revealed that Mudgett has an accomplice, and all the evidence points to Kallinger, but all the reality points to Van Til. Who is the predator and who is the prey in this cat and mouse game where ideas have consequences? “Cruel Logic” is a story about human nature, the problem of evil, and one man’s attempt to regain his sanity in a world without absolutes.