Women Who Kill 2016

Exes Morgan and Jean, who are extremely popular locally for their true crime podcast that focuses on female killers, continue to live and work together despite having ended their relationship. Their dynamic remains a tight, work-centered partnership, built on shared fame, late-night talks, and a stubborn dedication to their craft.

During a volunteer shift at a food co-op, Morgan meets Simone, a mysterious, dark-haired woman who gives her number and sparks a new romance. Shortly after, the lead organizer of the co-op, Grace, is found dead, and Simone is named as one of the last people to see her alive. Jean, ever wary of Simone, grows increasingly convinced that there might be a darker truth behind the organizer’s death. She begins digging into Simone’s past, uncovering that Simone’s real name is Allison Walker, a discovery that fuels her suspicions and drives her to confront Morgan with the findings, even sharing a clip from one of their old podcasts that features the interview of the serial killer Josephine “The Clipper” Walker and the regret she felt for the impact of her murders on her daughter.

At first, Morgan resists Jean’s concerns, but fear steadily takes root as Simone’s odd behavior escalates. One night, she wakes to Simone triggering the kitchen fire alarm, and the next day she finds a burnt piece of passport photo among Simone’s belongings. Morgan also witnesses Simone in an anxious, almost ritualistic state, rapidly clipping her fingernails on a bed and even attempting to trim Morgan’s nails. She reports these oddities to Jean, who claims to have done more research and now doubts that Simone is a murderer.

After attending her best friend Alex’s bachelorette party, Morgan helps tuck Alex into bed while she’s very drunk from the night’s celebrations. Simone then spends the night at Kim’s bachelorette party, the partner of Alex. Morgan’s curiosity leads her to pry open a mysterious box Simone keeps at home and she discovers an elaborate nail grooming kit along with boxes containing nail clippings bearing six names—victims linked to the infamous Clipper. Real fear sinks in as Morgan realizes the potential danger she might be in, and she heads to Jean’s apartment to share what she’s found. The next morning, Kim arrives to reveal that Alex is missing, deepening the sense that something horrifying could have happened.

Jean and Morgan decide to follow Simone, hoping she will reveal Alex’s whereabouts or the truth behind the disappearances. Instead, they stumble upon Alex herself, who is very much alive and unhappy with what she calls their melodramatic fantasies. Alex accuses them of crafting a fiction to justify spending time together and revisiting old feelings they still harbor for one another. The two deny the accusation, but the moment leaves a fresh rift between them.

A subsequent visit to the co-op reveals new tension: Jean’s new boyfriend informs Morgan that Jean had gone to the co-op to check on her and Simone, who were supposed to work a shift there. At the co-op, Morgan discovers an unconscious Jean on the floor. Simone insists that Jean fell on her own, while Morgan suspects that Simone harmed Jean and grabs a knife from the floor near the nail kit to protect herself. In a tense, charged exchange, Simone asks, “What if I told you I did kill those people?” and hints at a possible life together with Morgan. Yet the moment ends tragically when Simone accidentally impales herself on Morgan’s knife. Jean regains consciousness to witness the stabbing, revealing that she had injuries of her own and that Simone was ultimately innocent.

Leaving the co-op, Morgan encounters another co-op member and explains her blood-soaked sweater by admitting she has “hurt some people.” As Morgan walks down the street, the audience hears the ongoing podcast between Morgan and Jean, their heated debate about whether the killings could be framed as self-defense. The dialogue echoes Morgan’s own creeping belief that she killed Simone in self-defense, while Jean argues there was no legitimate reason for murder in self-preservation. The two decide to poll their listeners, inviting the audience to weigh in on the ethical murkiness of their profession and the line between storytelling and real harm.

The film closes with a quiet, unsettling reflection on how Morgan and Jean spend so much time dissecting grim cases for the sake of their show, yet remain largely detached from the real pain of the people who are affected by the stories they profit from, underscoring a meditation on fame, responsibility, and the cost of consuming violence for entertainment.