Most true crime buffs are familiar with the horrifying story of the “pizza bomber” or “collar bomb case,” 46-year-old Brian Wells who held up a bank in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 2003, with a bomb locked around his neck.
It detonated live on TV while police tried to figure out if it was fake or not. “It’s going to go off; I’m not lying,” he said, sitting on the ground, handcuffed, waiting for the bomb squad.
No one was ever charged with his murder and, to this day, the FBI concluded he was in on it while his family insist he was a pawn in an elaborate and cruel heist that stupidly — or intentionally — included an elaborate and impossibly timed “treasure hunt” to unlock the device.
What some true crime buff might not be familiar with are the people behind the plan: the main two, Bill Rothstein, and longtime love Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, both characters so extreme that in Courteney Cox’s new film Evil Genius, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, one would think they are ridiculous.
But watch the 2018 four-part Netflix series of the same name — which was written by Barbara Schroeder — who also co-directed it with narrator Trey Borzillieri — and remarkably they are indeed as they are depicted in Cox’s film, portrayed by David Harbour (Stranger Things) and Oscar winner Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), with the screenplay by Courtenay Miles.
Rothstein and Diehl-Armstrong dated from 1967 to 1971. But they could not shake each other. It’s hard to say what they were, but as seen in the films, she is manipulative with a capital M and he would do anything for her: like dismember the dead body of her long-term boyfriend and put him in a meat grinder; she settled for a freezer.
And, well, that’s the kind of movie it is. And it’s true.
In the theatre, it got plenty of laughs, but there is nothing funny about blowing a man up. Yes, Bill and Marjorie are absurd, narcissistic, self-important losers (murderers) and she leaves more than one body in her wake, but it would have been more respectful to play it as a dark psychotic thriller.
In the Q&A after the world premiere, Cox did say that after watching the docuseries, she thought, “This is so crazy. I didn’t quite understand. What? These were your choices? I didn’t want to make fun of anyone, but it’s also not a redemption story. It’s just so crazy. I just had to talk about it. I mean, no one knows all this stuff.”
Harbour seizes on the very name of the film, Evil Genius, which he thinks is a “hilarious title. It’s like right out of a superhero movie or something,” adding that Bill “really wants to be a genius,” pointing to a scene — which can be seen in the documentary — in which he leads the FBI around Marjorie’s house, talking about how he was able to hoist the body into the freezer.
“I think I asked you on set [directing this to Cox], ‘Does any of this have any bearing in reality?’ I think we were like, ‘No, an engineering student would rip all of this apart,’” Harbour says.
“I think that Bill’s hubris, in terms of his posturing, was a key to the character. And then within that was the love story because when you are posturing or have this hubris, it’s really nice to be validated for that thing. And I think he sought it so much in this woman that he loved his whole life. And so that was key to the love story as well.”
Arquette calls the research into Marjorie “a trip,” making a point to say she was haunted by the image of Wells, in his white t-shirt with the bomb underneath. “And then seeing the documentary, you see these excerpts of interviews of her and it’s like, ‘Wow, this lady is insane. How did she get all these people to do this whole thing?
“There were a lot of different books that were written about her, articles, podcasts, and the backstory of her life, the trail of bodies before this movie even begins,” noting other tidbits such as hoarding thousands of pounds of government cheese.
Anyway, watch the doc series while you wait for Cox’s film to get distribution. You will have a whole new appreciation for the work, and the acting.
Concluded Cox at the Q&A, “When you’re working on it and you’re trying to tell the story, you do lose sight sometimes because you get so wrapped up in the comedy — not the comedy, but the humor, the absurdity and it’s never to ever make fun of anyone.
“I don’t really know what to say other than I understand. Hopefully, people will see it for what it is, and the ending, and what happened to everyone [jail time and untimely deaths] I think is important. It is sad that no one was ever convicted for the murder of Brian Wells. It’s terrible, but I wasn’t trying to make anyone accountable or not. It was just telling the story and telling the dark humour around it.”
