Pathological: The Lies of Joran Van Der Sloot (now streaming on Peacock) presents the available facts surrounding the 2005 disappearance in Aruba of American high school senior Natalee Holloway, and connects them to the continuing sordid history of Joran van der Sloot – the prime suspect in Holloway’s murder, who was also convicted of the murder of another woman in Peru, and eventually extradited to the US to face charges of extorting cash from Holloway’s mother. If you’re talking true crime, the van der Sloot story writes itself. But it’s also been told a thousand times, on TV newsmagazines and in Lifetime movies. Pathological wants to paint van der Sloot’s criminal behavior as clinical. But it’s mostly just another summary of why he’s so awful.

PATHOLOGICAL: THE LIES OF JORAN VAN DER SLOOT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: In May 2005, Natalee Holloway disappeared during a trip to Aruba with her graduation class, and almost immediately, a Dutch student living in Aruba with his politically-connected family became the prime suspect. As Joran van der Sloot avoided prosecution and the mystery grew, the Holloway case became international news, and an example of media sensationalism surrounding stories of missing white women. Pathological: The Lies of Joran van der Sloot picks up the story thread in the aftermath of Holloway’s disappearance, and attempts to establish a causal link between that case and the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores in Lima, Peru, for which van der Sloot was eventually convicted.

That an obviously disturbed individual and likely sociopath would commit more violence on the anniversary of a previous incident is not the bombshell Pathological purports it to be. And while it includes interviews with hired gun psychologists and psychiatrists who point out the clinical hallmarks of van der Sloot’s criminal behavior, these aren’t direct diagnoses. Existing news footage makes up the bulk of the doc – there is a ton of this, after all, since the Halloway story broke wide in the media, has been repeatedly covered on Dateline and Fox News, and was equally sensational in The Netherlands  – and Pathological also features new interviews with Natalee’s brother Matt Holloway, Stephany Flores’ father Ricardo, and a woman who became van der Sloot’s girlfriend while he was imprisoned in Peru. All of which puts the murders of Halloway and Flores in their proper context, and effectively presents the evidence against van der Sloot. There is also a footnote of closure for the Halloway family, especially her mother Beth, with van der Sloot’s 2023 extradition to the US on charges of wire fraud. But while it’s unconscionable that he asked the family for money in return for revealing the location of Halloway’s body, a transaction based in lies since van der sloot was only after a quick payday, those lies are not in themselves “pathological.” As a documentary, The Lies of Joran Van Der Sloot have been covered before. But apparently the true crime industry demands more content.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The 2009 Lifetime movie Natalee Holloway is based on Beth Holloway’s autobiography. But basically, if you’ve got the time, there is all of the true crime. Format-wise, Pathological is in a pack with documentary material that presents huge-publicity cases in clearinghouse style. Like American Murder: The Family Next Door, about the 2018 murder of Shanann Watts and her children, or The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which rehashes the facts of that decades-old missing persons case.

Performance Worth Watching: “I hope he’s miserable. That’s what he deserves.” In interviews for Pathological, Matt Holloway, Natalee’s brother, offers a perspective that’s both resigned and still emotionally raw. “I definitely want to talk to him,” Holloway says of van der Sloot. “And I definitely want to whup his ass.”

Memorable Dialogue: Beth Holloway in a piece of archival tape, on her reaction to an interview with van der Sloot on Dutch television in 2008, three years after her daughter’s disappearance: “I wanted to come through the TV and kill him. I wanted to peel the skin off his face.”   

Sex and Skin: Nothing. However, in unsettling police interrogation recordings, van der Sloot is heard to describe his sexual assault and murder of Natalee Holloway. 

Our Take: You don’t need postgraduate degrees in psychology or criminal behavior to diagnose Joran van der Sloot as a complete piece of shit. But here is a documentary in 2024 to tell you that anyway, with a frame that appears clinical but feels more like a means of repackaging a 20-year-old case for the current true crime boom. In Pathological: The Lies of Joran Van Der Sloot, psychologist Abigail Marsh says people in her field aren’t allowed to diagnose public figures without having personally assessed them. “THAT SAID,” she adds, and proceeds to diagnose a public figure like van der Sloot as someone who “externalizes blame” and shows the “hallmarks of psychopathy.” In a later interview, a psychiatrist also declares van der Sloot utterly devoid of empathy. But as far as clinical comment goes, that’s it. And it’s all external. Pathological doesn’t really back up its title, and instead reconstructs in concurrent timelines the Holloway disappearance, van der Sloot’s eventual murder of Stephany Flores in Peru, and his attempts at extortion. While interviews with Halloway’s friends, Flores’ father, and individuals who encountered van der Sloot offer some insight, there is very little in Pathological that could not be gleaned from a cursory web search or the perusal of old news clips on YouTube. Nobody’s saying it isn’t extremely likely that Joran van der Sloot is of a disturbed mind, and a habitual liar. But likewise, and despite its title, nobody in this documentary is presenting any new, firsthand evidence of that assertion.   

Our Call: Pathological: The Lies of Joran Van Der Sloot is a STREAM IT as an effective primer for anyone not familiar with Natalee Holloway’s disappearance or van der Sloot’s years of criminal behavior. But it’s also a SKIP IT, since the doc doesn’t present a strong case for why any of this should be stirred up yet again, unless as an attempt at new clicks from the true crime curious.

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.