Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996)
HBO

Description

This dark odyssey began with the tragic murders of three 8-year-old boys, whose bodies were discovered in a shallow creek in West Memphis, Arkansas. The community demanded justice, and one month later the police delivered: three local teenagers accused of sacrificing the boys as part of a Satanic ritual. Despite overwhelming public antipathy towards them, defendants Damian Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley steadfastly maintained their innocence. Although the trial produced virtually no physical evidence connecting the defendants to the crime, the town, the jury, and the police felt that they had their killers, and used the young men’s penchant for heavy metal music and black clothing and a fascination with the Wicca religion as evidence of their guilt. With unprecedented access to all the players, Berlinger and Sinofsky captured the events as they unfolded before their cameras. From actual courtroom footage and clandestine jailhouse interviews to behind-the-scenes strategy meetings and intimate portraits of grief-stricken families, PARADISE LOST is a shocking yet uniquely American real-life drama.

Tags

1990s, America, Court cases, Legal

Collected reviews and ratings

10 Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

We leave the film unsure about who committed the murders, but convinced that an obsession with Satanism extends here far beyond the circle of defendants.
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10 ReelViews | James Berardinelli

No documentary released in 1996 challenges an audience the way this one does. The questions it proposes are profound, and there are no answers. Paradise Lost is one of a very few films that completely absorbs the attention.
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9.5 DVD Verdict | Victor Valdivia

There are times during both films when even the most jaded viewers will be tempted to turn their heads away from the screen in horror, but Berlinger and Sinofsky's storytelling is so precise and unrelenting that you'll be unable to stop watching despite yourself. Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2 are both vitally important films and if you care anything at all about documentaries, you need to see them.
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9.4 DVD Verdict | Bill Gribon

Paradise Lost, is a movie laced with potential, prospects, and problems. It never glorifies or exploits the crimes it is concentrating on, nor does it delve into issues meant for mere gratuitous gratification. Like the inspired artists that they are, they let the facts formulate the themes and symbols to tell their story. They just have the innate skill and aesthetic drive to turn it all from prosaic to poetic.
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9.0 New York Times | Janet Maslin

Without trivializing the killings they came to investigate, the film makers carefully study the tattered social fabric that is the backdrop for an unthinkable crime.
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9.0 DVD Talk | Scott Lecter

Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky do a superb job of crafting a film that not only works as a straight crime documentary, but also functions as an expose on the intolerance of people and the shortcomings of a justice system that clearly does not always work.
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8.0 allmovie | Tom Wiener

This is not an easy film to watch; the anguish the victims' families feel is palpable, and it's easy to sympathize with their quest for speedy justice.
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7.0 DVD Town | Christopher Long

The documentary draws us into the world of West Memphis, Arkansas where people (some, at least) really do believe in Satan and fear that his minions walk among them. This hysteria clearly plays a role in the case, though whether it directly impacts the verdict or not is difficult to tell.
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