Copycat killers are a favourite of thriller writers the world over, and that’s what we have here in this French series from all the way back to 2017 that’s just been added to the Walter Presents stable.
If you want to avoid all spoilers for ‘The Mantis', stop reading this article now.
Known as ‘La Mante' in French, ‘The Mantis' stars Carole Bouquet as Jeanne (aka The Mantis) – a convicted serial killer of eight men 25 years previously. She cruelly tortured and humiliated her victims and pleaded guilty to each one. But she believed that she did a service to society, because each man had abused and performed violent acts on others in his own shortened lifetime. She was basically ridding the world of scumbags.
She’s now safely incarcerated in a high-security prison, so when three murders occur that bear all the hallmarks of The Mantis, the investigating officer, Feracci (played by Pascal Demolon) makes the unusual and desperate decision to deploy her help to identify this new copycat.
But the mysterious Jeanne, who has had no visitors in all her years in jail, has certain demands before she’s willing to assist the police – one being that her own son, Damien (Fred Testot) who happens to be a police officer himself – is assigned to the case. He’s an undercover cop, but given the urgency of the situation is dragged away from his current case and told what is required. He has had nothing to do with his mother since her incarceration; he’s told his partner that she’s dead, for example. Reluctantly, he agrees to join the team and finally gets to meet his mother.
Jeanne is shown crime-scene photographs of the new spate of murders and is taken to one of the scenes, where she spots a detail that could only be known by someone very close to her original case. This narrows down the field of suspects drastically, as only a handful of people could have had access to this information. Suspicion falls on one person in particular, and when his computer reveals email correspondence between him and Jeanne, the police think that he was working under her guidance.
This is a very dour series. Okay, so serial killers are not exactly a laugh a minute (unless it’s ‘Dexter', of course, which was exceptional,), but this show is so humourless and sombre, it’s difficult to actually care about any of the protagonists. The writing is perfectly fine, and it’s nicely produced. The plot is slightly ridiculous, but I could forgive that if it was a more enjoyable watch. But it isn’t. It’s gloomy and rather depressing.
Perhaps things will improve as the show progresses, but after one episode, I’m not entirely convinced I’m invested enough to continue.
Walter Presents: ‘The Mantis' is available on C4 Streaming as a full boxset now.
