PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Featuring shady dealings, brutal maulings, and haunting mysteries, the subjects of documentaries can be far more disturbing than anything that can be found in a horror film. These ten documentaries are based on true events, and will haunt you after the credits have ended.
1. The Imposter
On June 13, 1994, 13 year-old Nicholas Barclay went missing from his home outside San Antonio, Texas. Four years later, his family received a phone call from Spain telling them their son had been found, and the Barclays were thrilled to be reunited with their son. However, he seemed to be changed, with different eyes and hair color, but the entire family accepted him without reservation. The film identifies the “son” as an imposter named Frederic Bourdin right away, but the real shock of the film is in the blind willingness of the Barclays to be deceived.
2. Kids For Cash
Bolstered by a zero-tolerance policy and a personal sense of arrogance, juvenile court judge Mark Ciavarella cracked down on kids guilty of minor infractions by handing out long prison sentences. In exchange for these sentences, he would receive millions of dollars in monetary kickbacks from the juvenile detention center he sent them to. This deeply shocking documentary explores the scandal and serves as an overall critique of the juvenile justice system and its privatization.
3. There’s Something Wrong With Aunt Diane
Loving mother and aunt Diane Schuler was driving her two children and three nieces home from a camp one day when she drove the wrong way down the Taconic State Parkway in Westchester County, N.Y. She was doing 75 – 80 mph for about two miles before colliding head on with another vehicle. The guilt that follows after this tragedy and the mystery of why it happened makes for gripping viewing.
4. The Bridge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwl-Pa_QT0M
Director Eric Steel placed cameras on the Golden Gate Bridge for an entire year in order to capture those who chose to attempt suicide by jumping into the Golden Gate Strait. When they noticed someone who seemed to be preparing to jump, they notified the Bridge Authority, whose job it was to stop them. Steel estimates they prevented six jumps during the year they filmed. Far from being exploitative, the film is a sensitive, yet unflinching, look into the dark abyss of the human mind.
5. Blackfish
In 1983 in the seas of Iceland, a young killer whale named Tilikum was taken from his mother’s side and shipped to a rundown resort on the west coast of Canada. In 1991, he killed his trainer. Tilikum was then transferred to SeaWorld in Florida, where he would go on to kill two more times: one of them in front of a crowd of people. The film explores the close confinement of creatures meant to roam free over thousands of miles, whales being forced to share spaces with individuals they might not choose in the wild, and training that involved punishment with solitary confinement and the withholding of food. Any animal, when pushed to their limits, will fight back violently.
6. The Cove
In a tiny village in Japan called Taiji, a secret hunt takes place once a year. Sonar is used to confuse dolphins and herd them into a hidden cove where the young ones are captured for use in theme parks like SeaWorld (that’s right, you’re the bad guy again!). All other dolphins are brutally slaughtered. The Cove is a heartbreaking documentary showing how former dolphin trainer Richard O’Barry and his team of divers and cameramen manage to penetrate the tight security around the cove to get secret footage of the mass slaughter.
7. Capturing the Friedmans
Capturing the Friedmans is the story of a family torn apart by suspicion, fear, and doubt. Arnold Friedman was a popular high school science teacher who also gave computer classes at his home. It was there where porn was found, and soon molestation allegations are leveled against both Arnold and his 18 year-old son, Jesse. We are never really sure of the guilt or innocence of the men, and we also can’t be sure the victims aren’t being coached. Or does the truth lies somewhere in between?
8. Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?
This documentary takes a terrifying look at the phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder in the honeybee population. Beekeepers will go out in the morning and find their bees dead or simply vanished. What the documentary finds is an insect nearly done in by the acts of mankind. And without bees, so much of the food we depend on would cease to exist, resulting in a difficult position when the death of the bees could mean our own end.
9. The Staircase
On December 9, 2001, Michael Peterson called 911 to report that his wife, Kathleen, had fallen down the stairs in their home in Durham, North Carolina. He found her in a pool of blood, and she died in his arms. But when the police got there, they decided it didn’t look like an accident, and Michael was the only suspect in what looked, to them, like murder. The case unfolds in real time as we follow Michael’s attorney’s preparations for trial and the trial itself. But just when you think you have the seen the resolution, there are more twists yet to unfold.
10. The Jinx – The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst
Before the phenomenon that was Making a Murderer, there was The Jinx. This six-part documentary tells the story of Robert Durst, a wealthy real estate heir who may have been responsible for the deaths of as many as three people who were close to him. The film combines reenactments, archive and security footage with interviews with the spooky Durst himself. It makes for a stylized, slick film, and the ending is a jawdropper. This is quite simply one of the best documentary films ever made.
Are there any documentaries we forgot that you think belong on this list? Add them in our comments below!
