From Network and Natural Born Killers to To Die For, Shattered Glass, Nightcrawler and this season’s Ink, cinema has long chronicled how far the fame-hungry will go to manufacture a shameless sensation; Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime (B+) earns its disturbing place in this lineage. The documentarian-turned-narrative filmmaker directs Robert Pattinson as an intense, fame-starved Chris Hansen amid the chaotic production of NBC’s mid-2000s reality phenomenon To Catch a Predator, exploring the murky intersection of public service, media exploitation and voyeuristic entertainment. Pattinson surrenders completely to the role in accent, affectations and clammy mannerisms, playing Hansen as a man who seemingly rehearses every waking hour to appear comfortable in his own skin yet still radiates a deeply creepy persona. As his long-suffering segment producer, Merritt Wever is wonderfully wry and matter-of-fact about the frankness, absurdity and eccentricity of the surreal spectacle she is helping curate. Skyler Gisondo is equally terrific as “Decoy Dan,” a newcomer to the predator-trapping troupe who briefly parlayed his reed-thin acting abilities into bait for the surveillance house. The queasy tone, ominous music and David Bolen’s hypnotic cinematography create a deeply unsettling freak-show atmosphere, skating between nostalgic dark comedy and a voyage into the heart of darkness. Oppenheim’s ability to locate flashes of humanity among people on every side of the camera only makes the enterprise more terrifying; nobody is made better by this fun house mirror being held before them. In the specifics of this story, the keen director reveals the universal. His film magnifies media malfeasance with a cynical, unforgiving lens, delivering one of cinema’s most unnerving examinations of how easily the prurient can become prime-time entertainment.