“The Mystery of 100 Year Old Murder Comes to DVD for Halloween” is a very informative press release about the DVD release of the independent film “Villisca: Living with a Mystery.”
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) October 18, 2006 — What happens when murder visits a small town and remains a mystery? After over 14 months in theaters in 52 cities, the award-winning and critically-acclaimed independent documentary film “Villisca: Living with a Mystery†will be released nationally on DVD on October 24, 2006 through Passion River Films.
When an entire family was murdered on a June evening in 1912, a small Midwestern town spiraled into chaos and division. The still-unsolved axe murder mystery made national headlines, built and ruined political careers, created a lasting community split over the guilt or innocence of a local State Senator, and produced three sensational trials.
“Villisca” tells the epic true story of Iowa’s worst mass homicide, the Villisca Axe Murders. This true-crime mystery is more mystifying than America’s Lizzie Borden and more intriguing than London’s Jack the Ripper.
I have seen the film, having purchased a copy on eBay a while back, and found that while it feels like the definitive telling of the murders and the search for the perpetrator of this heinous act, the filmmakers paid too close attention to the sensibilities of the small town of Villisca to the detriment of the story.
In the film they spoke often of how the town would rather not remember/celebrate/commemorate these crimes, not only for the impropriety of the gruesome nature of the axe murders, but because the ensuing search for the killer pitted neighbor against neighbor and created deep social rifts that continue to this very day.
In my opinion, the film does not go far enough to tell the tale. For instance, there are no crime scene photos included in the footage. Apparently out of respect for the citizenry of Villisca, the flimmakers have elected to work around the gore. I found this probelmatic and a bit disengenous to sell the film as the “epic true tale” without presenting the physical evidence to the viewer as well. All the carnage is left to the imagination, and this makes the film less than satisfying as a true documentary film.
