Richard Kuklinksi was a killer. He claims to have killed more than two hundred people during his career. If you had the money, he could take down anyone you wanted him to, and up until the time he was caught (obviously) leave without a trace and almost always guarantee that the job would be done properly. HBO dedicated three episodes of their 'true crime' series, America Undercover to Kuklinski, and they've now been released for the first time on DVD, all three of them on one disc.

In this first of three parts on the disc, Kuklinski is interviewed in a maximum security prison about his criminal activities and his motives behind them. This part pays close attention to his motives, his methods, and the bizarre fact that he was able to live what appeared to be a very normal family life unbeknownst to anyone who knew him as 'The Iceman' and vice versa.

Here, again in prison, Kuklinski answers more questions, this time focusing closer on his methods – how he was able to make a career as a professional killer. One would assume that it's not a very easy line of work to fall into but Kuklinski talks about it so nonchalantly that by the end of this piece you may just feel otherwise. He got very wealthy off of other people's lives and makes no qualms here about what he did or how he went about doing it.

In this last installment on the DVD presentation, infamous forensic psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz sits down in prison with Kuklinski for a one on one jaw session with him. They touch on such issues as his professional killing jobs, his temper, his victims and his methods (he had a penchant for getting right in your face to make sure you recognized him before he pulled the trigger) as well as his troubled childhood and family background. While the first two chapters in the sage are quite interesting, this one beats them hands down as Dietz gets Kulinski to open more than he did in the previous two episodes, making this a frightening and compelling look at his life in his own words.

Looking at the man in question, one wouldn't suspect Kuklinski of being responsible for the murdering of over two hundred people – some out of economic arrangements and many out of pure spite. But here he is, not looking out of place at all at a family restaurant or business man's convention. You could sit next to him in church and never expect any kind of closeted skeletons like the ones revealed here. The people interviewed in between Kuklinski's segments, many of them experts in the field of criminal psychology and police procedures, make repeated remarks to the effect that he wasn't a serial killer – he wasn't on drugs or doing any of this because of sexual perversions, voices in his head, or secret messages from his neighbor's dog. He was well aware that when he pulled the trigger you would be dead. Never to come back. And he reveled in aspects of it, seeming almost happy during some of these talks, that he'd pulled the trigger in the first place. The fact that a man like that can exist in our society undetected for so long and continue to kill and kill and kill makes this a real life horror that you won't soon forget.

These three fifty minute glances into the world and mind of a mass murderer are, at times, pretty strong stuff. HBO does incorporate actual crime scene photos (read that as pictures of dead people, kids!) as well as America's Most Wanted style reenactments of documented events that occurred throughout 'the Iceman's' career. Sometimes it comes off as a little cliché but more often than not it's rather unsettling, but never dull. For a society like our own that is obsessed with death, crime, and the media this is a nice package that sometimes gives us maybe little more information than we might have wanted to know but manages to keep it all as tasteful as can be given the subject matter and remains an informative and insightful look into Richard Kuklinksi's life and lifestyle.

Video:

Seeing as all three parts of this presentation were originally made for television broadcast, it makes sense to find that they're presented fullframe. The quality overall isn't too bad. There is some video noise present in certain scenes and a couple of spots aren't lit as well as they could be resulting in a less than perfect picture, but for the most part, it's very watchable and looks as good as most TV shows do.

The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track provided is both clean and comprehensible, even if it does suffer from its origins. There is some background noise present in a few scenes but for the most part, dialogue is quite easy to follow and understand and seeing as this presentation is almost entirely dialogue driven, that's what matters most here.

The disc has a menu that allows you to select which of the three parts of the presentation you'd like to view. Save for that, the disc is completely barebones.

The Iceman Interviews is absolutely fascinating. Kulinski has nothing to hide in these tapes and as his story unfolds he leaves the audience both intrigued and repulsed. Despite the barebones presentation, HBO has done a decent job bringing these interviews to DVD.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.