Netflix recently picked up the BBC series The Serpent for U.S distribution, adding to an already bloated collection of stream-able serial killer content. The drama series, however, may provide a change of pace to the “true-crime” genre, which, for the streaming site, includes mostly originally produced documentaries and docuseries. It may also be a redundant dramatization of what has already been put to film and TV several times: the story of Charles Sobhraj (stolen name: “Alain Gautier”), the so-called “Bikini Killer,” who preyed on tourists traveling through southeast Asia’s “Hippie Trail” during the 1970s. Do we need another piece of film about this piece of … trail scat? Probably not. Yet here it is.
The celebrity of Sobhraj has persisted for some time. After his release from jail in India in 1997, Sobhraj reportedly sold the rights to his exploits to a French…
