How Hours of Unedited ‘To Catch a Predator’ Footage Shaped ‘Predators,’ a Doc That Connects Chris Hansen to America’s True Crime Addiction
“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.
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“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.
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“Predators” filmmaker David Osit was one of those original transfixed viewers, but he began to reconsider his relationship to the series after gaining access to unedited footage: hours-long, unbroken interrogation shots that captured the complete, ugly truth of these men confronted with the fact that their lives as they knew them had 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.”
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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.
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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.
Childcare provider cancels meeting amid confusion for parents caught up in alleged sex offences saga
By Ben Butler and staff
Fri 4 JulFriday 4 July
In short:
On Tuesday, authorities announced a 26-year-old childcare worker was facing more than 70 charges relating to eight alleged victims at a Melbourne childcare centre.
Parents are now expressing frustration that a childcare provider overseeing several facilities where the accused worked has cancelled a meeting with them.
What’s next?
Police say they are thoroughly reviewing Mr Brown’s employment history at childcare centres and will inform impacted parties and update the government website once confirmed.
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Parents say they are angry after a childcare giant that employed alleged child sex offender Joshua Dale Brown claimed police asked that a meeting with families be cancelled, amid frustration from other parents who have been asked to get children tested for sexually transmitted diseases a second time.
Warning: This story contains details of alleged child sex offences which may distress some audience members.
But Victoria Police have denied advising childcare operator Affinity Education to cancel the Thursday night meeting at the Papilio Early Learning Centre in Essendon.
In an email sent to parents on Thursday afternoon, and obtained by the ABC, Affinity said: “As the investigation is still open, we have been advised by the police that there is nothing further to share at this time and therefore the meeting has been postponed.”
“We understand how distressing this is and that you may still have unanswered questions.”
Sexual assault support lines:
- 1800 Respect National Helpline: 1800 737 732
- Lifeline (24-hour crisis line): 131 114
- Full Stop Australia: 1800 385 578
- Bravehearts: counselling and support for survivors of child sexual abuse: 1800 272 831
- Child Wise: counselling provider: 1800 991 099
A parent at Papilio Essendon told the ABC they were desperately seeking more information from centre management.
“It’s chaotic for sure,” they said.
“At the moment we know as much as the general public and that’s the source of frustration.”
A police spokesperson told the ABC: “Victoria Police did not advise Papilio Essendon to not go ahead with the planned meeting.”
“Victoria Police has given no instruction to impacted childcare centre operators regarding their meetings with families. That is up to centre operators to determine and organise as they see fit,” they said.
On Friday afternoon, a police spokesperson said they were conducting a “thorough review” before releasing any information publicly.
“Victoria Police is continuing to work through further material provided to police over the past few days by childcare centres in relation to Brown’s employment history.” they said.
“Once the assessment is completed, authorities will seek to inform the impacted parties directly and also update the government website.”
Parents report being given conflicting testing advice
Meanwhile, parents at other centres where Mr Brown worked are furious at what they say is a lack of clear communication from authorities, leaving them feeling they cannot “trust the Health Department advice”.
The department said on Wednesday its highest priority was the health and wellbeing of the children, as reports emerged that families had received conflicting screening advice, meaning their children might need to be tested twice.How to talk to your kids about body safety, boundaries and consent
In the wake of the distressing sexual abuse allegations against a childcare worker in Melbourne, many parents are feeling anxious. Here’s how to talk to your kids about body safety.
Two families at Williamstown’s Only About Children received texts recommending their children be tested for gonorrhoea and chlamydia on Tuesday, only to receive another message also recommending syphilis screening two days later, according to media reports.
“We acknowledge this is an extremely distressing time for everyone involved, and regret that this family faced additional stress and anxiety,” the department said in response.
Another parent at the Williamstown centre told the ABC they proactively had their child tested for all three illnesses.
They said their child had been recommended for gonorrhoea and chlamydia screening, while others enrolled at the same centre at the same time were being told to also test for syphilis.
Fast facts
- Joshua Dale Brown, 26, has been charged with 70 offences relating to eight alleged victims at a Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook. His previous employment spans 20 centres.
- About 1,200 children have been urged to seek testing for infectious diseases following one of the allegations that Mr Brown contaminated food with bodily fluids.
- On Wednesday, the Victorian government announced it would commission an urgent review focused on immediate action, including whether CCTV should be installed in childcare centres.
- Eligible parents or guardians can access $5,000 in financial support. More information can be found on this government website.
- A second man, Michael Simon Wilson, was also charged with serious offences related to child sex abuse material and sex offences. He was not a childcare worker but is believed to be known to Mr Brown.
“A number of other families took matters into their own hands and did the same, and also tested for HIV and other diseases, because they realised they couldn’t trust the health department advice,” the parent said.
The parent criticised what they characterised as a “bungle” by the health department.
“They have had weeks and weeks of working with the police to get things right and yet they still stuffed it,” they said.
“They clearly learned nothing from COVID.”
Parents at another centre, Aussie Kindies in Sunbury, were told this week that Mr Brown may have worked two additional days there, on top of the period already made public by the government.
A spokesperson from Affinity Education Group told the ABC they are reviewing staffing data.
“We are committed to transparency and will support the release of accurate information by the relevant authorities.”
Mr Brown, 26, of Point Cook, faces more than 70 charges including sexual penetration of a child under 12 and producing child abuse material relating to eight alleged victims at Creative Gardens Early Learning Centre in Point Cook between April 2022 and January 2023.
He also worked at several Affinity centres including Papilio in Essendon, which was his last-known employer before he was arrested in May.
Affinity did not comment when asked about the cancelled meeting.
According to information released by the Victorian government on Tuesday, Mr Brown worked at Papilio Early Learning in Essendon between February 17 and May 9 this year.
The government said he had also worked at the Only About Children in Williamstown between October 28, 2020, and March 30, 2021.
This week, Affinity said it was re-examining its records to see if Mr Brown worked for it on additional dates to those so far publicly disclosed, after the ABC approached the company with evidence he was at a different centre on a date not included on the government’s list.
Government says advice could change
On Friday, Victorian premier Jacinta Allan said messages sent to families about the type of testing their children may require were based off information obtained by Victoria Police at that time.
While acknowledging the impact on those families, she said the advice to families could change as investigations continue, including centres involved and possible dates Mr Brown worked at various centres.
“I understand very, very keenly that we need to continue to work to ensure that Victorian families can trust the system that is caring for their children,” she said.
“I’m determined to continue to take action that will support not just that trust but strengthen the safety of children in settings.”
She said she was first made aware of the allegations on June 19 at which point the government worked with Victoria Police to arrange appropriate supports.
Impacted families and the community were not made aware of the allegations until nearly two weeks later.
“We knew that once the suppression order was lifted that there needed to be immediate advice and support provided to those affected families,” Ms Allan said.
“I will not do anything to risk the investigation of Victoria Police and seeing justice being served in this instance.”
Former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill will lead a review into child safety in childcare settings alongside public servant Pamela White.
Mr Weatherill’s appointment was criticised by the state opposition.
The former South Australian premier faced calls to resign and was forced to issue and apology on behalf of his government to the victims of paedophile carer Shannon McCoole.
The state opposition said it was “deeply concerned” by Mr Weatherill’s appointment and accused Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan of politicising the review by appointing a Labor ally.
Opposition Leader Brad Battin called the decision “an insult to every Victorian family”.
Ms Allen defended Mr Weatherill’s appointment saying he was “the best person to lead this work” and brought a huge amount of experience and personal commitment.
A TV show turned paedophile-hunting into entertainment – and may have changed us all in the process
The Oscar-tipped documentary ‘Predators’ dives into the disturbing phenomenon of ‘To Catch a Predator’, which for four years entrapped adults sharing sexual messages with children on the internet. Tom Murray meets the new film’s director
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There is a moment in every episode of the Y2K television phenomenon To Catch a Predator where something almost transcendent takes place. After an exchange of a sexual nature is made online between an adult and a decoy adult posing as a child, the adult arrives at the home of the “child”, which has been wired with cameras. There, the adult is greeted by a young-looking actor, who could easily pass for an underage child, and given the chance to incriminate themselves further. Before anything further occurs, a television host named Chris Hansen steps out from a hiding place, camera crew in tow. There is often a pause, and we watch – gripped, horrified, excited – as the ensnared adult’s life collapses in on itself in real time.
“In that moment, time stops,” says Mark de Rond, a Cambridge University ethnographer, in David Osit’s new Oscar-tipped documentary Predators. “What you’re seeing is, effectively, someone else’s life end.”
Osit, the Emmy-winning filmmaker behind Mayor (2020) — his portrait of a Palestinian politician navigating the Israeli occupation of the West Bank — has crafted a self-reflexive documentary that questions itself as much as it questions its subject. In it, he dives into the era in which To Catch a Predator was a television juggernaut, and speaks to the actors who played the decoys, many of whom are still grappling with their role in this morally dubious spectacle. “I had buried all this very deep until you guys brought it up,” one of them tells Osit in the film.
To Catch a Predator ran on the US broadcaster NBC for less than four years, ending in 2008 after one man “caught” by the show, a Texas assistant district attorney, Bill Conradt, died by suicide during production. His death was filmed by the show’s camera crew. Four more individuals “caught” by the show have died by suicide since its end. Predators probes the programme’s ethical fault lines, while simultaneously questioning whether Osit is guilty of similar impulses. “How different is what I’m trying to do from what the show did?” he asks me. “Am I trading in the same trope? And does the intention behind that trope change how you read it?”
To Catch a Predator purported to have journalistic intentions, namely to educate parents about the risks children face online, to deter would-be offenders, and to learn more about the psychologies of paedophiles. In reality, the series operated as little more than primetime spectacle, engineered for shock and schadenfreude. The stings were conducted in states where the men had already broken the law by the time they’d made sexual remarks on the internet to individuals they believed were children. The home visits, then, as well as the arrival of Chris Hansen – all pure theatre. “The show is basically a performance art piece,” Osit tells me.
The starkest illustration of this came in Hansen’s interviews with the captured men, each of which would conclude with the same line: “You’re free to leave.” It was a trick. Outside, police officers lay in wait, ready to chase, tackle or taser the men the moment they walked out – the episode’s final punchline.
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The series was a ratings hit. Predators shows Hansen being feted on all the major talk shows at the time, by hosts we regard today as staunchly liberal. “It’s like Punk’d for paedophiles, it’s a great show,” raves Jimmy Kimmel. “You guys should have your own channel for this show,” Jon Stewart tells Hansen.
Were there no dissenting voices at the time? “I can remember very little, if any, criticism or controversy around the show,” Osit says. “The only journalist that I remember ever writing anything negative was Charlie Brooker.” In 2008, the Black Mirror scribe, then a columnist for The Guardian, wrote: “When a TV show makes you feel sorry for potential child-rapists, you know it’s doing something wrong.”
If To Catch a Predator failed to draw empathy from the majority of viewers at the time, Osit’s film certainly will not. Through hours of unseen footage, the director shares the emotionally fraught interludes between the “gotcha” moments: men with their heads in their hands, begging for help that the NBC series had no expertise in sharing, nor interest in providing. “To show these men as human beings, the show kind of breaks down,” De Rond says in the film.
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At times, Osit’s documentary descends into such grim territory that watching it becomes a test of endurance. There is the case of an 18-year-old Michigan high school student who was arrested after speaking to a decoy he thought was a 15-year-old boy. Hansen, still flogging his predator act, featured the boy in his show’s latest iteration, which airs on the low-rent streaming service, TruBlu. Osit interviews the boy’s mother as her son begins to sob softly off-camera — his young life in ruins. I ask Osit if he was worried about the sheer emotional intensity of his film at times. “The pain that you’re feeling, if you’re watching something harrowing in this movie, is because you’re having an empathetic reaction to something,” he says matter-of-factly. “And this is a film where there are lots of people who are denying empathy to other human beings. So no, to answer your question. I never worried about giving people too much, because it’s a film about people who aren’t giving enough.”
While To Catch a Predator may have been short-lived as a TV show, its influence was far-reaching. In its second act, Predators follows some of the amateur copycats who have taken up Hansen’s mantle as self-appointed paedophile hunters. In particular, Osit shadowed Skeet Hansen – so-named after his hero – whose sting operation videos frequently rack up more than five million views on YouTube. In one excruciating scene, Skeet and his team of rookies apprehend a would-be predator at a motel, only for the police to tell them they don’t have the resources to send anyone right away. Osit forces the audience to bask in the misery with him. Skeet dolefully delivers his catchphrase to the suicidal man – “you’ve just been Skeeted” – and waits hours for the cops (who proceed to let the man go). “It felt like days,” the director says of the experience.
For Osit, it was the discomfort of realising that as far as the man in the motel was concerned, there was no difference between him and Skeet – they were just two separate cameras in a room. “I found that so interesting and fraught and complex that I felt like the film had to show that to people,” he says. “Whether they’re documentaries with a purported higher purpose to be instigating a liberal investigation, versus a show that’s set up to derive entertainment from someone’s worst day… in that moment, they’ve merged.”
About an hour into the film, Osit does something that reframes the entire documentary. He reveals to De Rond that he himself was a victim of child abuse. It’s something he tells me came up “organically”, and once it did, he realised he couldn’t take it out of the film. “Knowing that about the film’s creator gives [it] a purpose that many documentaries pretend they don’t need to have,” he says. “We have documentaries that just kind of exist to give you the left-wing ideology of something, or to beat a drum of some issue, and it’s as if they’re made by God. With Predators, I wanted to give the audience an experience of what happens when something that purports to be morally elevated is, in fact, what everything is in the world: subjective.”
It’s a revelation that makes Osit’s eventual showdown with Hansen in the documentary all the more dramatic. “I set up this gladiator match that I didn’t even realise I wanted,” says the filmmaker. Hansen was someone who promised Osit the answers to something he’d been looking for his entire life: How could someone do that to a child? In reality, Hansen fell well short of that.
The interview ends with Osit turning Hansen’s own line back on him: “You’re free to leave.” The TV host unwittingly gets his own Predator treatment, captured on CCTV as he walks out and climbs into a waiting car. Osit asks what it means if we find that role reversal funny. “Are you finding humour from the same type of schadenfreude that you get from when he’s dismissing the man on the show? Does that mean that you also have somewhere inside of you a level of enjoyment of people’s discomfort? Are you laughing because of the sensations that we all can carry with us, which is that at the end of the day, if there’s an uncomfortable situation, we’re always going to be glad that we’re not the ones in it?”
Predators was released in the US in September, days after which Osit, curiously, appeared on Hansen’s podcast. “Because life is short,” Osit tells me about his appearance, laughing. “It felt like a full circle moment for a film that’s really reckoning with its sense of self.” It’s a fascinating interview, lighter in tone than that of the documentary but no less honest. To his credit, Hansen asks Osit bluntly: “Do you think we should keep doing these predator investigations?” The director told Hansen he didn’t think they were investigations anymore. Hansen, in his 2025 form, now relies on professional police sting operations and merely interviews the captured men afterwards. “It’s like a control experiment in the science lab,” Osit says. “If you keep taking things out, what’s left but the fact that we’re supposed to derive entertainment?”
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Osit’s concerns stretch far beyond To Catch a Predator. He’s ultimately asking what happens when human pain becomes a product. “I think it always means there’s someone getting to benefit from someone else’s suffering and that is a frightening reality.” Whether Osit’s own work escapes the same dynamic is, he suggests, a question for the audience. As he tells Hansen in the series: “We make TV, we point cameras at something and the trauma continues.”
‘Predators’ is released in UK cinemas on 14 November and will be available on Paramount+ from 8 December
