Inside the ‘To Catch a Predator’ Documentary

“My life may be crappy, but at least I’m not on TV.”

That’s one explanation for the mass appeal of “To Catch a Predator” put forth by a subject in “Predators,” a new documentary about the mid-aughts sensation. The feature, now expanding to theaters nationwide after opening in New York and Los Angeles, provides an expansive and disturbing look back at the “NBC Dateline” segment, which spun addictive reality TV out of in-house pedophile sting operations.

“To Catch a Predator” had a simple formula. Each episode saw an actor pose as a teenager, uncovering a child predator in an anonymous online setting before reeling them in for an in-person meeting. At the rendezvous, newsman Chris Hansen and his cameras would come out, an interrogation would unfold, then the cops would make an arrest. The series only ran for three years, but its gripping fusion of vigilante justice and pseudo-“Punk’d” gotcha-ism, all delivered by the suave Hansen, captured the zeitgeist and fostered lifelong acolytes.

“Predators” filmmaker David Osit had left “To Catch a Predator” in the past before gaining access to unedited footage: hours-long, unbroken interrogation shots that captured the complete, ugly truth of these men confronted with the fact their lives as they know it have been decimated. Compared to the editing rhythms of “Dateline,” these weightier images reminded Osit of slow cinema auteurs like Hou Hsiao-Hsien; the not-fit-for-air footage contains a thorny emotional complexity that true crime content doesn’t typically allow for. From there, the premise of Osit’s documentary took shape.

“What if I could make a film about how shows like ‘To Catch a Predator’ align us with some sense of good and evil by their nature?” he says, speaking with Variety over a Zoom. “We all want simple moral fables. They’re easy to commodify — easy to sell and easy to watch. They ask nothing of you.”

The first act of “Predators” shows how the sausage got made on “To Catch a Predator,” with interviews from the series’ former actors, recounting the dirty work of playing into pedophilic fantasies. The documentary dives into the moral negotiations of producing true crime content, which has become as much a pillar of the nonfiction space as superheroes have for blockbusters. It’s a personal matter for Osit, who has dabbled as an editor in true crime, as almost anyone making a living in documentaries must nowadays.

“In true crime, there’s no interrogation of who’s bad and who’s good. There’s an overt praising of police as a moral arbiter. Bad guys are deviants. They get caught. The bad guys are gone. You’re a good person for watching the show. It’s so boring to me,” Osit says. “My issues are true of some left-wing docs too. They don’t ask us to think very hard about our positions. We enter angry, we leave angrier. We’re just affirmed and we silo more into that direction.”

Osit’s documentary reveals a grander scope as it goes along, uncovering a modern world of “To Catch a Predator” internet copycats performing their own vigilante operations. A particularly oddball stretch involves a ride-along with Skeeter Jean, a self-branded “Chris Hansen impersonator” who has amassed more than two million YouTube subscribers aping the Dateline format. Meanwhile, Hansen himself hovers over “Predators” as an Oz-like figure — an all-powerful original discussed in hushed tones who is eventually probed for fraudulence.

While “Predators” is still playing theatrically, Osit is particularly excited for it to enter the streaming ecosystem, where it can turn the tables on an unsuspecting viewer looking to get a true crime fix.

“It’s exactly what I want the film to do. I hope that they just think it’s about ‘To Catch a Predator’ and that the rest comes as a surprise,” Osit says. “How cool is that? Having an unexpected experience during the algorithm-age of watching content.”

From the opening on, this documentary is frank about the appeal of “To Catch a Predator,” even as it is interrogating it. How important was it to preserve the draw of the show in the documentary?

I had to build that into the movie. Some could read this movie as an indictment of the audience, but the first person who gets indicted is me: the filmmaker. I couldn’t ask an audience to consider their own agency consuming true crime unless I was asking an audience to consider the ethical approach of making this film. Are the predator hunters and me that different? I’m not sure. We both are incentivized to make our stories more engaging to get more people to watch. This documentary is often doing the same thing that “To Catch a Predator” is doing. If you have a problem with one, where do you decide where that problem ends when it comes to the other?

You become somewhat of a subject as the documentary unfolds, appearing on-screen more often. That tilt starts with a ride-along you perform with Skeeter Jean confronting an alleged predator. Was that experience different from what you were expecting?

I didn’t give it much thought until I was in the room and feeling uncomfortable with the fact that I was there. As far as the alleged predators were concerned, they’d see Skeet’s camera crew and they’d see mine; we’re all just doing the same thing. I was contributing to something that I wasn’t sure I agreed with. You see something that happens in every single documentary — my team’s request for permission to use someone’s likeness — but it feels absolutely fraught. In that moment, I’m trying to differentiate myself from Skeet, but there’s not a huge difference in the first place. That’s when I started to realize I had to be in the movie; to actually give any sort of indictment of audience complicity, I had to examine my own.

Most of the subjects you interview have a connection to the series, except for the ethnographer Mark de Rond, who provides commentary on the unseen footage. When did you decide the documentary could use that more academic perspective?

He was embedded with predator hunting groups in the U.K. and was writing a book about them. He had some of the same moral doubts about his work that I was having about filming. I started to see him as a voice of the filmmaker, before I myself had a voice yet in the film. He was someone that I interviewed early on. It also helps that he’s European, giving an outsider’s view of America. It’s almost an aura of neutrality: the way Martians might see us, with a tremendous amount of curiosity and a lack of judgment.

Did you have any difficulty reaching people for interviews?

No. I’m sure there were some people who were nervous, but it’s also 20 years ago. A lot of time has passed. People appreciated that I was open about what I was interested in, and they reciprocated that openness.

Since you describe the documentary as self-interrogative, did you gain anything personally from making this film?

It helped me connect more with some anxieties I have about what I do for a living that I never was able to articulate — like what the efficacy is of some films that purport to be effective when it comes to raising awareness. Something Ken Loach said, that I’ve always loved, is that “a film at best can only add its voice to public outrage.” A film can’t be a movement, but it can make you angry and then that anger can help you seek out a movement. But that anger sometimes turns you inward. I wanted, if I could, to make a film that did neither — that left you with provocations and challenges and pulled you out of the typical way that we watch something.

This interview has been edited and condensed.