Paradise Lost (Collector's Edition) (Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills / Paradise Lost 2: Revelations)
by Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
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DVD details
Director: Bruce Sinofsky, Joe BerlingerBrand: New Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 280 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-10-28
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: DOCURAMA
DVD Reviews of Paradise Lost (Collector's Edition) (Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills / Paradise Lost 2: Revelations)
DVD Review: Who's fooling who
Summary: 1 Stars
The documentary is sixty minutes worth of useful information crammed tediously into a little over two hours. It is supposedly unbiased, but the filmmakers seem intent on planting reasonable doubt in the viewer's mind and gaining public sympathy for those convicted of these crimes. After watching this, I'm not sure who I was most offended by, the convicted killers, who are in jail, the people who take their vacations to get together for a party to show their support for the killers (more specifically Echols) or the step-father of one of the victims who gives every indication that he is a certifiable mental patient. The victims were the only sympathetic characters involved in this fiasco and of course they are dead.
The idea that anyone would be convicted of murder merely because of his or her appearance is repugnant - but the convicted men's defenders merely profess that to be the primary factor for these convictions. It is a belief that isn't clearly evident from the facts presented in this film nor is it supported by the independent reading I have done on this case. And the detail emphasized by their defenders that one of the murderers has a low IQ , a detail cited as a primary factor for not believing his confession, is hardly credible. Our prisons are filled with thousands violent people and many of them have low IQ's. In fact, after hearing the killer's supporters in this documentary rationalize why they are so obsessed with this case, I surmise some of them would have their own difficulties scoring well on an intelligence test.
The black and white footage, from the first documentary made about these murders, shows a younger Damien Echols stating that he always wanted to be famous for something and this was his something. While he didn't come right out and admit on camera that he had killed the boys, his inference was that he had. In reading some of the independent testimony not presented in this film, Echols had, in fact, boasted to friends that he had committed these murders. Now as he sits in prison with plenty of time to think and a cult-like following, he plays the martyr and denies involvement - gee, that's novel, a killer who claims to be innocent.
A murderer attracting the sympathy of people with too much time on their hands is nothing new either. Wesley Cook, A.K.A. Abu Jamal, literally has thousands of supporter all over the world routinely calling for his release, even though his case has been reviewed countless times for frivolous reasons by the courts and his conviction is always upheld. But, just as in the West Memphis 3 case, true believers seldom let facts interfere with their crusades? The only words of comfort I can offer to these "faithful followers" in the Echols case is that the way the death penalty works, chances are neither he, nor Cook for that matter, will ever be executed. These killers will die of old age in prison probably outliving many of the people who have dedicated their lives to idolizing these killer-con men.
More Paradise Lost (Collector's Edition) (Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills / Paradise Lost 2: Revelations) reviews:
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Description of Paradise Lost (Collector's Edition) (Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills / Paradise Lost 2: Revelations)
From Emmy award-winning filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky comes for the first time in one collector s edition two of the most shocking documentaries of all time about a gruesome triple murder in West Memphis.On May 6, 1993, the mutilated bodies of three 8-year-old boys were found in a shallow creek in West Memphis, Arkansas. A short time later police arrested three local teenagers, linking the boys' killings to a satanic ritual. One of the boys confessed. The intriguing court case was about to unfold as filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky ventured forth to make the Emmy-winning documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. They captured footage of not only courtroom proceedings but also interviews with the major players in trial--parents, suspects, lawyers. The documentary filmmakers, whose previous film, Brother's Keeper, is as intriguing a crime story you'll ever see, tells this story without re-creations or flashbacks. The film makes a clear argument that the court trial may not be about witchcraft but a witch hunt. As with any great drama, the faces and situations are etched upon the viewer; however, we are dealing with real lives and real crimes (told gruesomely and necessarily by police photographs and videotape), and the impact is far greater. And so is the maddening ambivalence of the trial. Like the O.J. Simpson fiasco, a verdict is reached but the truth is questioned. Did police make fatal errors the night of the crime? Do last-minute clues lead to justice? Who's lying on the stand? As with Roger and Me and Hoop Dreams, we have a provocative single incident that holds a mirror to many of society's problems. The results are just more horrifying. --Doug Thomas
Four years later, Directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky return to the scene of the crime with Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, the urgent follow-up to their harrowing 1996 documentary, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. That profoundly disturbing film chronicled the tragic and twisted case of three young men--Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley--who were convicted of the brutal 1993 murders of three second graders. Revelations, which, for those who missed the first film, efficiently recaps the case, and charts the trio's maddening appeals process (police browbeat a confession out of Misskelley, who has an IQ of 71, after 12 hours of questioning), as well as the efforts of a group of Internet advocates to "Free the West Memphis Three." Byers is back as well, and he is infinitely more terrifying than anything in Book of Shadows, Berlinger's Blair Witch sequel. We learn that Byers had all his teeth extracted in the years after the murders (human bite marks are among the new evidence introduced). We also learn that his wife has since died of undetermined causes. When Byers passes a suspect lie detector test, he exults, "I knew I was innocent." A further mystery is why both Paradise Lost films have not garnered the media attention or sparked the outrage that attended Errol Morris's The Thin Blue Line, which led to the release of an innocent man who was imprisoned for more than 10 years. Both films give new meaning to the concept of reasonable doubt. --Donald Liebenson
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