Partly because of the nature of the subject, most true-crime documentaries tend to emphasize dread. Some of them employ formal devices similar to horror movies, such as ominous soundtracks, dark lightning, and moody camera movements. My interest in the problem of evil is philosophical, and the constant attempts to induce fear are distracting.

I'm interested in documentaries that are more like case studies, with a clinical, speculative or even scientifical approach to the problem of evil embodied in criminal acts.

Any suggestions?

Not sure how spoilers are supposed to work here, but I deleted my other post and put the image in the comment

https://i.imgur.com/6EupcC0.png

T.W. - is Arthur imagining it in arkham asylum? When asked by the social worker he didn't have much of an answer why he was locked up before.

I'm interested to find out who you think is making good films? I'm also interested in what your favourite film from them is, and why you like it.

Feel free to interpret it how you like -- I'm interested in distribution as well as production companies, as well as producers, directors, writers, and actors.

This is what you get when you search VUDU for free science fiction movies. The plot is banal enough. A spacecraft is discovered in Colorado that is 14,000 years old. A linguist and her lover are hired to read an inscription and then summarily paid and told to go home by the mysterious and unlikeable head of the project, Richard Kontral.

This description in no way does justice to how bad the script is. My first theory was that a rich father gave his fourteen year old son a chance to create a movie for his birthday present. But it's really just a low budget sequel to an obscure cult film called Moontrap.

The lead character, Scout, is played by Sarah Butler who evidently rose to wordly fame in I Spit on Your Grave. Every line that Scout says to the villain includes adolescent sexual insults. The villain is I believe a washed up actor from an old sitcom called The Nanny. This guy is really hard to watch, the acting is as bad as the script.

There's a scene of robots fighting that looks like it was choreographed with Rockem Sockem Robots, a toy from my childhood. If you're a collector of bad movies, this is a true gem.

It was tough to watch, but our free streaming was slim pickings that night. I wanted to watch Day of the Triffids a classic bad movie from the '60's , but got outvoted. At least that movie was based on an interesting SF novel by John Wyndham. Maybe tomorrow night.

I just found out about this and it's something I guess I should have known about before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Smithee

Alan Smithee (also Allen Smithee) is an official pseudonym used by film directors who wish to disown a project. Coined in 1968 and used until it was formally discontinued in 2000,[1] it was the sole pseudonym used by members of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) when a director, dissatisfied with the final product, proved to the satisfaction of a guild panel that he or she had not been able to exercise creative control over a film. The director was also required by guild rules not to discuss the circumstances leading to the movie or even to acknowledge being the project's director.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000647/

We have about a million films showing vampires, zombies, werewolves, and ghosts.

But despite rich folklore traditions we see very few films about other creatures. There is a handful of films dealing with leprechauns, pixies, trolls, fairies, witches, goblins, gnomes, etc. And that's just the western traditions. We have huge range of unexplored creatures from around the world. If I had to sit through yet another vampire film I'd rather it was based on adze traditions than Bram Stoker reinventions.

Why are there so many films that tread the same ground about vampires, zombies, and ghosts, and so few films about everything else?