"Most blisteringly, it's an unexpectedly personal love letter to 25-year-old porn actor and aspiring director Billy London, born William Newton in rural Wisconsin, who was murdered on October 28, 1990. His head and feet were discovered by a transient in a WeHo dumpster, a mystery that would temporarily grip national media that was otherwise obsessed with stigmatizing AIDS."
"The cast of good samaritans includes old boyfriends and roommates, true crime podcast hosts, a curious LAPD detective, and a stubborn empty nester in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, born in the same year and place that Newton was. Mason and her editor Dion Labriola's filmmaking and forensic instincts reveal a boulevard of brutality that resounds bitterly in our contemporary moment."
"Interspersed throughout is myth-making imagery of the man we now only remember as Billy London, a queer human hunting for love and acceptance by way of meth and misguidance, who arrived as a teen in West Hollywood hitching truck rides in the decade before the slur 'queer' was reclaimed by pride movements."
Rachel Mason's documentary 'My Brother's Killer' explores the 1990 murder of 25-year-old porn actor and aspiring director Billy London in West Hollywood. London's remains were discovered in a dumpster, but the case grew cold despite initial media attention. The film celebrates West Hollywood's Santa Monica Boulevard during the 1990s, the VHS era, and the gay male community amid the HIV crisis. Through interviews with former boyfriends, roommates, true crime podcast hosts, and an LAPD detective, Mason and editor Dion Labriola document how the decades-old mystery was eventually solved. The documentary portrays London as a vulnerable queer individual seeking love and acceptance while struggling with addiction, arriving in West Hollywood as a teenager during a transformative period for LGBTQ+ culture.
Read at Filmmaker Magazine
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