Crime, Chaos, Corruption Documentary Reviews
There are some weeks when I check streaming services for new documentaries and I’m thrilled. When the MH370: The Plane That Disappeared documentary popped up as a notification on my phone from Netflix, I was elated and ready to finish my day so I could get to the next and watch this one during work.... Continue Reading →
I’m writing this well over a year after watching Have You Seen Andy? It’s a true crime documentary about the disappearance of Andy Puglisi in Massachusetts during the 1970s. Whenever I watch true crime documentaries or any other genre I feel is worth reviewing and writing about, I’ll make a note of it. Sometimes I’ll... Continue Reading →
I love a good conspiracy theory. Convincing me it’s true is another ordeal. In 9/11: The Fifth Plane we’re presented with the brief story of how one plane may have been a fifth target on September 11. This is a very short documentary and quite frankly, I don’t think it deserves a full-scale review like... Continue Reading →
Let’s clear up one thing right away. Mark Stroman and Marcus Stroman are two very different people. The one in the documentary An Eye for an Eye is a bit more sinister, at least at the start of things. If you've followed the ballplayer on social media, you'll know he can get himself into a... Continue Reading →
Beast of Bangalore: Indian Predator is the true crime documentary about an alleged sexual predator and murderer in India during the late 1990s named Umesh Reddy. The documentary covers multiple crimes of his and several escapes he made while imprisoned. Reddy is cunning and more clever than those assigned to watch over him. There’s nothing... Continue Reading →
It was probably the release and popularity of Making A Murderer which created the true crime documentary BOOM! We can credit streaming services for continuing it. The availability to go back and watch old documentaries made with blood, sweat, and tears was easier. What’s more, anyone with a camera and a police file could film... Continue Reading →
When I saw Colin Kaepernick was associated with Killing County, I thought I was going to get something self-righteous and slanted. As much as I want to agree with every point he makes, the man loves nothing more than the attention he gets for it. Killing County was different. Someone was smart to let him... Continue Reading →
I was watching a series on Hulu about missing people when the director of Cropsey popped up to talk about a different case taking place at the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island. Intrigued because I kind of recall seeing something about Cropsey in the past, I made it my documentary to watch the following... Continue Reading →
Young love and a lot of murder is one way to sum up the possible story behind The Twelfth Victim. The other is far less sexy. It involves an 18-year-old going on a killing spree with a 14-year-old girl hostage. A lot of what happened is known. Whether or not Caril Fugate was a willing... Continue Reading →
Michael Peterson and Damien Echols are easily two of the most famous main characters in true crime documentary history. Peterson is the leading man in The Staircase with Echols appearing as the primary defendant in the Paradise Lost trilogy alongside Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley. Peterson and Echols have more in common than their Errol... Continue Reading →
Standing at 4’9, Richard Flaherty became the shortest member of the Green Beret. A decorated veteran of the Vietnam war, The Giant Killer covers his life and unusual death. Like far too many veterans of the war, Flaherty suffered when he returned home to the US. He got mixed up in some shady business at... Continue Reading →
The Murders Before the Marathon cover the unsolved murders of three men in a suburb of Boston on 9/11/2011. The date is significant in this case because one of the major suspects is Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers. He’s the one who died while on the run and not the younger brother... Continue Reading →
I didn’t know what I was getting into when I watched A Murder in the Park. I was pleasantly surprised because this true crime documentary seems to be over after about ten minutes only to take a great big turn against social justice warriors, snooty college kids, and professors who think they know better than... Continue Reading →
Where is the best place to watch a true crime documentary? On a comfy couch with a loved one of course! But seriously. I spent way too much time searching for the perfect true crime documentary to get me through the day. Most of my watching takes place while I work so anything foreign language... Continue Reading →
One of the greatest mysteries of the 21st Century is what happened to MH370. The missing Malaysian Airlines flight disappeared on its way to China and almost ten years later we still don’t have a positive identification as to what exactly happened. MH370: The Plane That Disappeared is Netflix’s newest documentary covering what happened. It... Continue Reading →
I haven’t written a review on any disaster documentaries in a while. One film to catch my eye was the recently released Finding Michael. It’s the story of Spencer Matthews who sets out to find his brother Michael who died on Mount Everest. The premise is a lot better than the execution. This documentary wasn’t... Continue Reading →
What A Murder in Mansfield is all about without spoiling the show This true crime documentary is different from many others. It’s not so much the case of Jack Boyle murdering his wife Noreen as much as it is about their son’s revelations in the aftermath. A Murder in Mansfield starts off with courtroom footage... Continue Reading →
You couldn’t turn on television in the early 2000s without seeing Jared Fogle aka Jared from Subway. It’s one of the most unique stories in the history of the world in my opinion. He’s one of the most obscure celebrities alongside John Wayne Bobbit and Kyle Rittenhouse. In no other version of reality are these... Continue Reading →
I first heard of the Oklahoma Girl Scout murders on an episode of the true crime podcast Criminology. This was back in 2021 when I was the only person working from the office and didn’t know how to turn the lights on in the room. It sets a dark mood each working day. Only a... Continue Reading →
What Enemies of the State is all about without spoiling the show Matthew Dehart claims to be a lot of things. He says he has sensitive government information. He claims to be a member of the hacker group Anonymous. He admits to those two but he denies allegations of grooming two minors online and soliciting... Continue Reading →
What Trial in the Outback: The Lindy Chamberlain Story is all about without spoiling the show You may not know the name Lindy Chamberlain. You certainly know the most famous words she ever said, at least in some form. She is the mother of the child in Australia who was allegedly killed by a dingo.... Continue Reading →
Here is where I have a personal-bias; I’ll often not bother with a true crime documentary if the name of the person in the title sounds like it might not be American. It doesn’t make me a bad person. Many of these documentaries I watch are viewed while working. I’ve mastered the art of being... Continue Reading →
What Death in the Bayou: The Jennings 8 is all about without spoiling the show Death in the Bayou is the case of the Jennings 8. There you have it! Explanation complete. I think most people who are into true crime are familiar with this case. It’s well-known, a rumored inspiration for the first season... Continue Reading →
The revived Unsolved Mysteries series on Netflix doesn’t have the same feel as the old Robert Stack version. Nevertheless, it’s a fantastic rendition of a classic. Rather than give us an hour of television with about four stories lasting ten minutes, each episode of the new Unsolved Mysteries is a single case. I’ve enjoyed most... Continue Reading →
In what I believed to be the last hours before Netflix password sharing ended, although I’m not even quite sure about that, I decided to give Bad Vegan a try. I’ve been avoiding it for a while without really knowing much about the story. We begin with a pretty intriguing case. A restaurant owner who... Continue Reading →
Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story gives away exactly what it’s about in the title. It’s all good. Plenty of true crime documentaries work even when you know the outcome. I won’t tell you exactly what happens in the end because I think it’s a worthy watch. In this story, Cyntoia Brown is a... Continue Reading →
What Fortune Seller: A TV Scam is all about without spoiling the show Fortune Seller: A TV Scam takes us to Italy for the story of Wanna Marchi and her daughter Stefania Nobile whose best contributions to society might be how much fun it is to say their names. They are a mother and daughter... Continue Reading →
Murder in Big Horn is a true crime documentary about several different cases in Big Horn County, Montana. The area is largely populated by Indigenous people. If you’ve followed true crime, you’ll know the rate of murdered and missing Indigenous women is outrageously high compared to the population. This is a huge problem in the... Continue Reading →
The ongoing trial of Alex Murdaugh has every streaming service scrambling to create some documentary about the case. And before we get into this battle of true crime documentaries, take note he pronounces his first name as “Alec” for some odd reason. I’ve listened to multiple podcasts about this case and have already reviewed Murdaugh... Continue Reading →
With a title like Where is Private Dulaney? one would expect something a little more unsolved or a slew of suspects. The true crime documentary Where is Private Dulaney (dropping the question mark because spell checker loves to capitalize the next word automatically) starts off like a mystery but early on in the first of... Continue Reading →
What Tell Me Who I Am is all about without spoiling the show The documentary Tell Me Who I Am is exactly what it presents itself to be: a mystery. We begin with a man waking up from a car wreck with no knowledge of who he is or what happened. He later finds out... Continue Reading →
I have a new favorite type of true crime documentary. Ones that were once featured on the Robert Stack version of Unsolved Mysteries have a certain connection with me. I watched the entire catalog of episodes back in 2021. The true crime documentary Still Missing Morgan is a case featured on the classic 1990s television... Continue Reading →
Nobody seems to be able to pick out a more unique premise for a documentary than filmmaker Errol Morris. I hadn’t seen any of his films prior to watching The Thin Blue Line in 2022. The 1980s true crime documentary made me an instant fan. His style of filmmaking is so basic and simple. It... Continue Reading →
Everyone has had PEZ at some point in their life. The colorful, long-necked devices which carry the candy is a staple food of some children. The Pez Outlaw documentary tells the story of a man named Steve Glew who worked to smuggle different collectible PEZ dispensers back in the 1990s. The documentary is as advertised.... Continue Reading →
I was the last one to watch Paradise Lost but among the first to see Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence. How can one woman have an entire cult inside of her? Well, Sarah Lawrence is a college, not a girl. This three-part docuseries tells the story about how Larry Ray moves into... Continue Reading →
An autopsy on The Vanishing Women true crime documentary Warning: The following contains spoilers and is provided as a recap of The Vanishing Women. Read at your own peril. The Vanishing Women is a six-part series about, conveniently, six different women who may or may not be connected by more than their zip code. Our... Continue Reading →
Who is the bad guy in Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? This isn’t a clearcut true crime documentary with a single victim and a murderer like I write about often. This documentary more about a corporation trying to screw over the little guy. It’s mid-1995 and Pepsi has a contest to collect points. You can win... Continue Reading →
What Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey is all about without ruining the show Looking for a weird modern day cult story? Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey tackles Warren Jeffs. He’s one of the more well-known cult leaders of the 21st Century. He’s an absolute creep and it’s so obvious from photographs. Keep Sweet, which I’ll... Continue Reading →
The State of Alabama vs. Brittany Smith could very well be an early 2000s film starring Reese Witherspoon if all you did was create something on a title. This is quite different. It’s the story of a woman, Brittany Smith, who is imprisoned for shooting a man after he has allegedly raped her. There seems... Continue Reading →
What Captive Audience: A Real American Horror story is all about without spoiling the show Captive Audience: A Real American Horror story is a tale in two parts covering two different cases very much related to each other. First, it’s the story of Steven Stayner who at seven years old is abducted by Kenneth Parnell.... Continue Reading →
When I watched Who Killed Lt Van Dorn I was hoping for something different. I don’t always read the descriptions of the documentaries I watch. Maybe I am partly to blame for not enjoying this one as much as other people could. Who Killed Lt Van Dorn sounds like a case of a military person... Continue Reading →
Pharma Bro is a documentary about the life, times, and possible heel character created by Martin Shrkeli. He’s more than a vowel short of being a nice person. Known mostly for raising drug prices several years ago for his own profit, this documentary sets out on a mission to uncover whether or not Shkreli is... Continue Reading →
The trial of Alex Murdaugh is ongoing and will be one of the big ones in 2023 to follow. If you are unfamiliar with the story, the true crime documentary Murdaugh Murders: Deadly Dynasty will catch you up. You also have me to provide some insight and a few tidbits as to why this is... Continue Reading →
The Paradise Lost trilogy is the quintessential true crime series. On its own, the first film stands the test of time. We get a behind-the-scenes look at a murder trial, the families of the victims, and the three teenagers whose future will be determined by a jury. No true crime documentary may ever knock Paradise... Continue Reading →
What Evil Genius is all about without ruining the show Back before I knew how much I enjoyed true crime documentaries, I heard on a sports radio show of all places, a recommendation for a Netflix series called Evil Genius. I took the recommendation to heart and watched what became one of my early favorites... Continue Reading →
There are a lot of true crime documentaries I think fall into the underrated category. I certainly enjoy some of the classics like Paradise Lost, The Staircase, and the forgotten gem from the 1980s, The Thin Blue Line. Some more modern ones that have fallen under the radar stuck with me just as much, if... Continue Reading →
It’s not always easy to find a good true crime documentary to watch. I’ll watch at least three a week. Too many times I’ll spend a few minutes searching only to settle for whatever series I’m also putting on in the background during work. My enjoyment of true crime documentaries on a near-daily basis is... Continue Reading →
What Dreams of a Life is all about without spoiling the show Unless you count being a bad friend a crime or a disaster, the documentary Dreams of a Life is quite different from many of the others reviewed here. It’s the story of a woman named Joyce Vincent who was found dead in her... Continue Reading →
What Have You Seen This Man? is all about without spoiling the show Have You Seen This Man is the story of John Ruffo who, after being sentenced to a 17-year prison term for his connection to a scam, disappears. Ruffo’s whereabouts are unknown but alleged connections to the FBI, Russia, and maybe even the... Continue Reading →
What Untold: Crimes and Penalties is all about without ruining the show The Untold Series is pretty consistent in putting together documentaries of the nefarious nature from the sports world. In Untold: Crimes and Penalties, we get the story of an alleged mobster who buys his 17-year-old son a minor league hockey team, the Dansbury... Continue Reading →
Practically Trouble 