just... wow

"Top 20 Trilogies Selection"

"Because he likes black and listen to heavy metal, he is guilty, then?"

'Paradise Lost 2, Revelations' is a study of the evidence and how the judicial systems works, the questions are still there, are they guilty? was the police unfair with the interrogation? and new question where raise..
is that a bite mark?
who is John Mark Byers?
do we have the right people in jail?

The director's gave us an overall picture of the evidence from both sides but never answer the question and rely on the viewer to made there own mind.

'Paradise Lost 2' is engaging, informative and over all, a very well made documentary.

"December of Madness"

Not an easy watch, by any stretch of the imagination, but probably the best of trilogy. Stepfather of one of the murdered children, Mark Byers, comes off as a complete and total nutjob & at times he is scarier than most horror movie villains. Great peek into the media circus, the support group that rallied around the West Memphis Three and the lives of the boys themselves as they sit in prison. In particular, Damien Echols, who was on death row awaiting execution by lethal injection. Powerful documentary storytelling.

Following on from the first film, this deals with Echols' appeal and the issues that surround it from the increasing support the West mephis 3 have garnered from the internet, to the ineptitude of the original defense lawyers to the ever present Mark Byers. While the first film allowed you to come to your own conclusions, this time Mark Byers's actions and constantly malevolent presence convinces me that he's totally guilty of at least one crime. Like a real life Max Cady, I was in constant fear that he was going to lash out at anyone who got close to him and by the end, even the most objective of people would struggle to think he's an innocent man.

A constantly fascinating case, I can't wait to watch the next film and Peter Jackson's documentary later in the year.

The sequel to the documentary is very interesting since a lot of it looks at the impact of the first documentary, which raised a lot of awareness on the case and initiated contact with forensic experts which then got involved with the case, and it even was part of the allegation to require a retrial. It documents the effect a documentary can have and that is a very interesting thing.

More exploitative than the first, but still worth watching.

The full review of the trilogy is now up on Next Projection.

Important, influential filmmaking necessary for a documentary.

Soooo, that new forensics expert working for the defense? The one who claimed there were stab marks where the later guys said it was done by animals? He doesn't come off looking too good in hindsight. And really, this whole movie doesn't come off looking too good in hindsight. It's fascinating, if for no other reason than John Mark Byers is such a weird, improbable character. But Berlinger and Sinofsky clearly use his weird improbable-ness to paint him as the prime suspect, which now, oops. I guess there was no way they couldn't use all the amazing material they had, but is the purpose of these movies ultimately to show that justice was not done, or to somehow be the instrument of finding the real killer? Because on the latter count, they should make a viewer kind of squeamish.

A much less impartial follow-up, wherein it is clear that these documentaries are having an observer effect on the case. An over tendency to point the finger elsewhere.

Yeah, I'm pretty hooked on this story. So captivating.