JustWatch

Killing for Love

2016

Das Versprechen

Directed by Marcus Vetter, Karin Steinberger

Love Is The Ultimate Weapon.

Derek and Nancy Haysom were brutally murdered in their house in Lynchburg, Virginia, on March 30, 1985. Suspicion fell on their daughter Elizabeth and her boyfriend Jens Söring. They flee to Europe, but are caught and extradited to the U.S. Elizabeth is sentenced to 90 years in jail for incitement to murder, Jens Söring to two life sentences. Karin Steinberger, Marcus Vetter and their team spent over three years researching this case, which achieved world-wide notoriety. They uncovered new evidence, including the fact none of the blood samples found at the scene of the crime belonged to Jens Söring.

Imogen Poots Daniel Brühl Jens Söring Gail Ball Steven Rosenfield Tom Elliott Ricky Gardner Gail Marshall Chuck Reid Carlos Santos Ed Sulzbach William Sweeney Dave Watson Rich Zorn

Alternative Titles

La promesa, La Promesse

Genres

Crime Documentary

Premiere

24 Jun 2016

Germany12 Munich International Film Festival

Theatrical

27 Oct 2016

Germany12

TV

25 Apr 2017

Netherlands

Germany

24 Jun 2016

Premiere12 Munich International Film Festival

27 Oct 2016

Theatrical12

Netherlands

25 Apr 2017

TV NPO 2

131 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★½

An intriguing story: one I had not heard of before. A beautiful, intelligent, young girl seduces an even younger guy and convinces him to take the fall for a murder he didn't commit. Even though the DNA points to other people, Jens Soering is implicated based on (his own) false testimony.
I was reminded of the West Memphis Three. One of them admitted to killing three boys, but apparently that person was mentally ill and the police "forced" a confession. Although, with KILLING FOR LOVE (the U.S. title), the details are different enough. Jens Soering wasn't mentally ill. He was just in love with the wrong girl.
The editing was sloppy a lot of the time and the date of…
Review by Jack Anderson Keane ★★★★

"Thank you very much for coming. Be careful. You're in Virginia. Behave very well. Think of Jens. It's not a joke. It's really not a joke."
***
A little too scattershot in its editing of the story's chronology, where you can constantly feel the film holding you at arm's length as it intentionally withholds certain pieces of information from you until a future time when it can reveal them for maximum manipulative shock-and-awe impact, as well as unsatisfactorily lacking in any attempts at meaningful understanding or insight into the twisted psyche of Elizabeth Haysom (essentially a real life Gone Girl-type) to hazard any kind of educated guess as to what the fuck her damage was, and why she wanted her…
Review by B E R T ★★★

There’s a lot going on in this documentary, and a great dealing it isn’t structured, there’s a bit too much jumping to and from interviewees and timelines and direction. This case is pretty bizarre, full of eccentric characters and goings on, I just wish it had a bit more structure in the way the documentary is put together. It feels like everything is actually here just not put together the correct way. I did enjoy it though.
Review by LazyDog ★★★★ 1

I truly thought that when Jens first sat down for the interview it was Fred Armisen playing him in a reenactment
Review by Mr. DuLac ★★★½

I felt like the hero in Charles Dickens' novel "A Tale of Two Cities", who gave his life for love.
-Jens Söring
There seems to be various versions of this, a 6 part mini-series, a 100 minute cut, a 130 minute cut and I'm not sure what else. Some are called The Promise while others are called Killing for Love. To add to the confusion, the version I watched was on Hulu, it's title was Killing for Love and the description says it's 1 hour and 30 minutes... but when you start the film you then see the actual run time is 2 hours.
It's a fascinating look at an over 30 year old double murder and the 19 year…
Review by Chris Browning ★★

The problem is that there’s so little to the story that isn’t initially pretty obvious- as such it’s kind of inert and very overlong. It very much suffers from being one sided and as such feels constantly a little perfunctory
Review by natalia ✿ ★★★

why do they keep on showing those two policemen looking bored out of their minds while recording Jens Söring’s interview sksjdu
Review by 𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚎 🐞 ★★★

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
bitches be crazy
Review by col_plimp ★★★

Bis auf einige unglaublich schlecht gespielte bzw. gestellte Szenen eine sehr interessante und blutige Geschichte/Fall; über zwei faszinierende Persönlichleiten, Liebe, Mord und den mal wieder versagenden amerikanischen Justiz- und Medien-Apparat. Schön direkt durch die vielen Originalaufnahmen vom Tatort, Verhören und der Prozesse selber.
Der Shakespeare unter den Mordfall-Gerichtsdokus.
Review by Andrew ★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

On the surface this true crime documentary is a simple boy meets girl and they end up committing a crime together and the boy takes the fall for it. Yet, what appears simple on the surface is actually much more complicated than it initially seems. In the film, the surface has barely been scratched on what seems like it could be a much deeper case than what has been told.
The crime documentary tells the story of Jens Soring, a German exchange student who falls in love with a Virginia native, Elizabeth Haysom. When her parents were found dead, the two were brought to trial for their murders. Jens originally told Elizabeth he would take the fall, and planed it…
Review by Niall Blackie ★★★★

Seen as part of the 52 Films by Women pledge 2017 - film number 42.
I guess since Making a Murderer proved to be so popular it was only logical we would be treated to more documentaries based upon real life crimes where there is a chance one if those convicted may be innocent.
Much like Msking a Murderer there was so much about the trials or the prosecuters/police that had me wanting to yell at the TV. The story is well presented with interviews from most of the key people and it builds nicely throughout.
I've said it before and I'm about to say it again, I often feel one of the signs of a good documentary is if the subject matter interests me enough that I go away and want to read more about it. Seeing as I already have with this one I guess you would call that a success.
Review by Shaun Deegan ★★★★

Check it out, Netflix, you can tell stories like this in 2 hours! Wild times! It was sincerely a little weird watching something like this that wasn't 4-10 hours long. I kept feeling like I was missing out on something, like not having access to every bit of minutia related, tangentially or otherwise, about the subjects life was negatively affecting my ability to really process the information. That's obviously not true, though; brevity is the soul of wit, after all.
I'm a sucker for these kinds of things, so take my affinity for this for what it is, but I found this story incredibly fascinating. I was completely engrossed in the tragedy of it all. The only real criticism I…

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Where to watch

Killing for Love

Das Versprechen

Synopsis

Love Is The Ultimate Weapon.

Cast

Directors

Writers

Cinematography

Composer

Studios

Countries

Primary Language

Spoken Languages

Alternative Titles

Genres

Releases by Date

Premiere

24 Jun 2016

Theatrical

27 Oct 2016

TV

25 Apr 2017

Releases by Country

Germany

24 Jun 2016

27 Oct 2016

Netherlands

25 Apr 2017

Popular reviews

Where to watch

Killing for Love

Das Versprechen

Synopsis

Love Is The Ultimate Weapon.

Cast

Directors Directors

Writers Writers

Cinematography Cinematography

Composer Composer

Studios

Countries

Primary Language

Spoken Languages

Alternative Titles

Genres

Premiere

24 Jun 2016

Theatrical

27 Oct 2016

TV

25 Apr 2017

Germany

24 Jun 2016

27 Oct 2016

Netherlands

25 Apr 2017

Popular reviews

Directors

Writers

Cinematography

Composer