The director and writers along with the cast and crew don't forget the victims in this senseless crime spree by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley who committed them in the early 1960s. The five victims included three young children and two teenagers. Pauline Reid and Edward Evans were the teen victims while younger children, Keith Bennett, Lesley Anne Downe, and John Kilbride were also met by cruel fates. The film version is dramatic, tragic, and doesn't show the actual murders. This television movie has a haunting move and maybe more on Myra's side of the story with her sister, Maureen, and mother more involved. We don't know much about Ian Brady's background. Once Maureen and her husband began spending time with Myra and Ian. It becomes dark especially since they go to the Saddleworth Moors to spend their free time. It seems like a haunting place to be for anybody. Maureen and Dave are unaware of Ian and Myra's crimes at the time. When Dave and Maureen go to the police, it unravels the Pandora's box of secrets held by the couple. Although Myra Hindley and Ian Brady's crimes are always being written about, there is an interest especially in an attractive and intelligent woman like Myra who did everything for Ian. You have to wonder why Myra did it. The two part version is well-acted by the cast and crew. Maxine Peake is in rare form as Myra Hindley. Joanna Frogatt is perfect as her long suffering and guilt ridden sister, Maureen. Sean Harris is fine as Ian Brady. The film is a haunting look at one of the most disturbing crimes in British history.

To me, when I first learn't about who Myra Hindley was, when she died back in 2002, I was again convinced that there are people out there who are just pure evil. To do what she did, the heaviest penitence is irreversible. Her and her partner, Ian Brady who unfortunately is still with us, sent chills through my imagination of what those poor kids suffered at the hand of these two monsters. This killer couple I've found the most disturbing in crime history, more so than the Wests. One reason, especially when you consider, one of the victims (a little girl) was asked to perform a horrendous sexual act for the sick gratification of these two scumbags, recorded on a tape seized, when found in a suitcase, amongst some other items that a proved a freaky find. The torture of this poor little girl, ran for sixteen minutes, played in court. I just recently read the actual transcript that was disturbing, even though I thought the dialogue was gonna be much worse. I know I would be much more disturbed if I heard the actual tape, where there's nothing worse than hearing a little girl, crying out for her mother. The 138 minute movie here, takes off, just before Hindley's sister's husband, Dave Smith, is introduced to Brady, at the invitation of Myra. Smith, the supposed third party in the murders, really got the short end of the stick, subjected to verbal and physical abuse, from angry crowds. Soon Brady and Smith are really buddying it up, where Dave, struck for cash, is thrown an offer by Brady to knock over a young guy. But that night, Smith really sees Brady's true colors, where he goes radge on the victim Edward Evans, a homosexual with an axe. This scene is violently confronting, but is sufficient to the rest of the movie, where other parts could of been bloody but were wisely held back, as Snowtown smartly did. We should be praising Smith who went to the authorities the next morning, where if he didn't, these two monsters could still walking among us. When Hindley and Brady are taken in they, they stick with their stories, making Smith to be the bad guy. When finding a notebook with a victim's name, amongst many movie stars, and that infamous suitcase, this is when the real horror was discovered, and these two became the most hated couple in Britain. In my opinion the story structure was so well formulated here. You can see it was done with care, as the writer honed in on all the important parts of this atrocity, you never hope in any lifetime you'll see an exact repeat of. In the roles, of Hindley and Brady, Peake's fantastic as Myra, showing a manipulative menace, as a normalcy that masked true evil, only Harris is better as the psychopathic nut, Brady. This fantastic British actor that you better watch out for, nailed it. A truly flawless performance, if I ever saw one. Harris truly sent chills down my spine, every moment he was on the screen, as I really got to know the face behind this evil monster, who personally, his death won't come soon enough. One point the nut, and Smith, were taking a slash outside, as Brady openly admits, "I've killed four people, I haven't finished yet". And of course, Smith didn't believe him, like most acquaintances of serial killers wouldn't. We are put through the horror with all the legwork on the Moors, where a couple of victims surfaced, plus the trial, Smith pleading his innocence to the victim's families to no avail. In the end he was acquitted, where a violent brawl years later, ended him one in the nick. And then there's the aftermath of Smith's wife, alone, who's really broke down and had sunk into an abyss of depression. It's just so terrible and unfair, how the surrounding family members cop it, over one evil doer, that happens to be related. I couldn't by it, how when Maureen, the sister, went to visit Myra with her mother in prison, how innocent Hindley seemed, her act of redemption, where she had cut of contact from Brady altogether. But we too remember Hindley was a manipulative SOB, better put to rest 12 feet under. Apparently 12 people showed up at Hindley's funeral. That many, hey. Smith, (who's kids had grown, forgetting one loss at birth, earlier) and Maureen had reunited years later, but I guess the past was all too much for her. The two players of these characters were convincingly good, no more than the impressive Froggart who really brought the helplessness of Maureen, at times almost too good, not that there's anything wrong with that. They just weren't up to the main players standard. This movie, that could of of had a better title, is involving, absorbing, and for some I can imagine disturbing, and even more so, to the British public, with ground knowledge of this terrible sixties shock event, worse than any horror movie, you'd rent instead.

This gets off to a poor start by losing its nerve, and becoming a very conventional sermon. Of all the ways to tell the story of the Moors murders, they chose a police procedural; a genre that dull-witted citizens can watch in their safe living rooms without being exposed to anything particularly troubling; and learn some lesson they can usually forget by lunch tomorrow. In order to take viewer identification off of Brady and Hindley, we arrive late in the sequence of things and are offered instead the protagonist/viewpoint of David Smith, a belated accomplice. 4 out of 5 of the crimes of Brady and Hyndley are already over. And the movie is too polite to name their grotesque acts.It would have helped if they specified their deeds, and made the two as grotesque and depraved as they actually were. Instead any detail that would drive home the horror and revulsion of their crimes is lost in deference to 'good taste.' The movie keeps hedging its premise. It flirts with banality in offering details like a lisping police sergeant, but providing almost no detail about the murders. This is a movie where we spend maybe 2 hours with the killers, and zero time with any of the 5 victims. Just what Brady and Hindley needed, more exposure. The most they can spare for the victims is a few images before the crawl. Bizarre. It's well-acted, but mostly ends up being a bland, forgettable study of police work, rather than the vivid, horrifying portrayal of evil that is now long overdue. Audiences will still need to ask their older relatives, precisely what it is Brady and Hindley did to deserve their exceptional shunning.

I was quite young [7 - 9 years of age] when these events took place, and remember the dreadful feelings that were prevalent. Before this drama was screened, I was not sure it would be possible to dramatize such an horrific episode without it coming across in a way that either glossed over or overemphasized many aspects. However, I feel this was a well pitched production. For me it has gone a small way towards dealing with something that has been uncomfortable to think about in recent times, when those involved were for one reason or another in the news. I don't think it would be appropriate for the full details to be made public in a television programme, but hopefully there was enough to be informative yet not too distressing. I hope the families concerned did not find the drama hurtful, and that it didn't reopen deep wounds for them - probably a vain hope, unfortunately.