WATCH: A true-crime doc about gay-targeting Last Call Killer honors the victims & community heroes

The early ’90s was an especially fraught period of time for LGBTQ+ Americans.

As the AIDS crisis worsened—with the death toll climbing at an alarming rate—ignorance and fear took hold, with reported incidents of homophobia and hate crime also on the rise.

For many New Yorkers in particular, gay bars were the only spaces to truly feel like you could be yourself. But even those safe havens became shrouded in uneasiness and paranoia when it became clear that a serial killer was stalking the city’s queer nightlife scene, always in search of his next victim.

From HBO and filmmaker Anthony Caronna (one of the filmmakers behind Hulu’s Pride miniseries), Last Call: When A Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York is a four-part true crime docuseries that, yes, re-examines the ghastly murders, but also highlights the heroes and activists who fought to keep their community protected.

Much like the investigative book on which its based—Elon Green’s Last Call: A True Story Of Love, Lust, And Murder In Queer New York—the documentary chooses to focus more on the victims rather than the mysterious assailant, known as the Last Call Killer.

Through a series of interviews with surviving friends and family members, Last Call pays tribute to the lives taken over a three year period between ’91 and ’93: Peter Anderson, Thomas Mulcahy, Anthony Marrero, and Michael Sakara.

Not unlike last year’s divisive scripted series from Ryan Murphy, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the documentary is sure to have its critics as it revisits some of the ghastly details surrounding these heinous murders, but Last Call also aims to shine a light on the systemic issues that only exacerbated the horrors at hand.

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Per an official synopsis form HBO, the docuseries will delve “deeply into the prejudices and attitudes of the times, when deep-rooted biases in the criminal justice system and the media’s distorted public perception of the victims undermined the investigation and enabled a brutal killer to prey on a marginalized populace.”

The four-part documentary will premiere July 9 on HBO and stream simultaneously on Max. You can watch the trailer below:

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