Between July 2000 and July 2001, 16 women were murdered in the holy Iranian city Mashhad, all but one of them with a prior incarceration for prostitution or drug-related charges. When 39-year-old Saeed Hanaei was arrested and then confessed to the killings, he proudly claimed his actions were in accordance with holy teachings of preventing vice and promoting virtue. Featuring a chilling first-person prison interview with Hanaei, this documentary tells the story of Iran’s infamous “spider killings” – named for the way he drew victims into a deadly web.
