Unsettling chills creep into suburban life with the arrival of John Wayne Gacy, played by Mike Korich, in Michael Feifer’s “Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door.” Based on the horrific true story, the film follows Bobby, a teenager portrayed by Mason McNulty, who sees Gacy settling in next door. Eager to make some cash, Bobby offers his help. But an unsettling feeling grows within him as he spends more time with Gacy. What dark secrets lurk beneath the surface of his seemingly friendly neighbor? Dive deeper into the plot to find out if Bobby uncovers the monster beneath the mask.
Spoilers Ahead
Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door (2024) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis:
The film starts with Gacy taking revenge on a young boy who once put him in jail. After spending a few months inside jail, Gacy buys a new house in a new locality and brings his mother to the place. There Bobby introduces himself to the new neighbors and asks Gacy if he requires any help, he can do it for a little money. Gacy also introduces himself as a political figure to Bobby’s parents, Howard and Darlene.
Gacy soon embarks on a horrifying spree, luring random men into his house and subjecting them to brutal torture before taking their lives. One night, Bobby hears some kind of screaming from Gacy’s house, and he starts observing Gacy’s movements. Every Friday, he sees Gacy coming into his house with some guy, but he never sees them leave the house. With all that screaming going on over the night, Bobby starts to get the feeling that Gacy must do something hurtful to all those men.
What does Bobby Find Out about Gacy?
One morning, Bobby decides to enter Gacy’s property to look for any evidence of Gacy’s wrongdoing. Bobby has already started ignoring Gacy. Howard and Darlene fail to understand why Bobby always acts so strange in front of Gacy. Bobby jumps over the fence and enters Gacy’s property. However, he fails to discover anything because Gacy has arrived, and Bobby needs to leave.
One night, when Bobby hears a lot of screaming from Gacy’s house, he decides to see what is going on. He looks through the window and finds Gacy, dressed awkwardly, killing a man he has just brought home. The following day, Bobby humiliates Gacy, who is wearing a clown dress to entertain the kids in the neighborhood. Bobby confronts his friends, revealing the truth about Gacy. Furious and desperate to silence them, Gacy chases after Bobby and his friends in a menacing attempt to threaten them. Knowing how dangerous he can be, Bobby decides to leave Gacy alone for the time being.
What do Howard and Darlene find out?
Since Gacy has chased them with his car, Bobby decides to share his feelings with his parents because things have taken a more serious turn. But, when Bobby tells his parents about Gacy being a serial killer and everything he knows, Howard and Darlene fail to believe a single word he says. They believe that Bobby, being a teenager, has imagined all sorts of things. Since Bobby does not have any proof to support his suspicion, they ask him not to take up his imagination any further. Gacy has been a good neighbor in their eyes, The parents think that, for some reason, Bobby does not like him, so he is making all these stories to make him look bad.
However, later, Bobby sees Gacy driving Kevin’s car, a boy who helps Gacy fix his fences. Bobby tells his parents that Gacy must have killed Kevin, or else he would not have been driving his car. Once again, Darlene and Howard dismiss Bobby’s theory, believing it to be a figment of his imagination.. But, later that night, Darlene and Howard find out that Gacy has returned home on foot. So, they start questioning whether he has left with Kevin’s car. Howard believes there must be something suspicious about this, so he asks Bobby to stay put as he takes matters into his own hands.
What Forces Howard to Change His Mind about Gacy?
Howard goes straight to the local detective, Carlson, and explains everything to him. However, since they do not have enough evidence to support their story, Carlson advises them to gather some evidence first. He, too, will look if something comes up against Gacy. On a Friday night, when Gacy leaves his house, Howard follows him to the town while Bobby enters Gacy’s property with a camera to gather the evidence. Darlene, in the meantime, looks out if anything goes wrong.
Bobby finds a crawl space. There, he finds numerous dead bodies. He starts clicking the pictures but soon Gacy returns from town. Howard has already called Darlene to let her know that he has lost track of Gacy because of the traffic in the city. Anyway, knowing that Gacy is again murdering someone inside the house, Bobby leaves immediately, leaving behind the camera accidentally. Bobby fails to make Darlene and Howard understand that he has seen the dead bodies because he has no proof once again.
Soon after, Gacy comes to the house asking for a bottle of wine. He is properly dressed and behaves very gently with Howard. Later, Howard tells Bobby that his delusion must come to an end now as he has not found Gacy doing any suspicious activity the whole time he has followed him. Howard even mentions how gentlemanly he behaved while borrowing the wine bottle. Despite the escalating evidence – men disappearing after entering Gacy’s house – Darlene and Howard stubbornly cling to disbelief. They blame Bobby, insisting his accusations are mere imagination and refusing to tolerate what they see as nonsense.
Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
How Does Howard Rescue Bobby from Gacy?
Later that night, Gacy enters Bobby’s room and kidnaps him. Detective Carlson calls Howard later that night, letting him know that Gacy has a criminal record and they need to be very careful. Right after that, Darlene finds out that there are signs of dragging inside Bobby’s room, so Howard goes straight to Gacy’s house. Meanwhile, Gacy is all dressed up like a clown, as he always does before killing his victims. But right before he can harm Bobby, Howard breaks open the door from outside.
Seeing Howard entering the room, Gacy jumps into the crawl space and escapes from the property. Howard rescues Bobby from the madman, and they are very much relieved. At the end of the film, we learn that Gacy was captured later on by the police, and 33 victims were discovered. Twenty-six of them were found in the crawl space, three were buried around his property, and the remaining four bodies were found in the Des Plaines River.
Gacy was sentenced to death on March 13, 1980. His execution was carried out by injecting a lethal substance at Stateville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994. Had Darlene and Howard believed Bobby earlier, one or two persons could have been saved. But adults, being adults, fail to see beneath the human soul as they spend very little time understanding people’s behavior.
Bobby, as a teenager, spent most of his time studying the human being behind Gacy’s social mask, which led to his suspicion in the beginning. Anyway, thankfully, Bobby is perhaps the only victim who was lucky enough to be rescued from the clutches of the serial killer next door—Gacy.
