FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Paradise Lost: The Child Murderers At Robin Hills Wood 

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills is unique among courtroom documentaries in that the makers obviously had access to both sides of the trial. To family meetings, attorney meetings, and even meetings with the judge. It begins with the sad video footage from the crime scene. Depicted are gruesomely disfigured corpses and a rumor makes the rounds, were they victims of satanic rituals? A month later, 17-year-old Jesse Misskelly testifies that he was - along with his friends Damien Wayne Echols and Jason Baldwin (who mutilated the bodies). So they appear in the courtroom. Jason, small and blinking, Damien superior, intelligent and articulate. Damien listens to heavy metal, dresses in black and studies Wicker writings. A well-known guy in his neighborhood. But is there any actual evidence or any connection of the trio to the crimes? Five liters of blood were drawn from one of the victims and yet no blood is found at the scene. The prosecution relies on hearsay statements. Jesse, who testifies quietly and shyly, only relays what the police told him beforehand. He corrects facts in his testimony even in response to police tips. He is found guilty (and his mother had also warned him not to tell lies in the courtroom). The "evidence" against Damien is provided by a state examiner of occultism (who in turn got his title from a distance university). The parents of the victims curse Damien and wish him torture for life. Later, we learn from one of the victims' fathers (who swears revenge) that he himself beat his son with a belt shortly beforehand - the maltings served as evidence of ritual killing at trial. All three defendants claim to have an alibi for the night of the crime. That's all we learn about them. When the death penalty is handed down for Damien, we are anything but convinced of his guilt. Where did Damien, Jason, and Jesse even hear about satanic rituals? In church. Some in the church seem to need Satanism to support their worldview. They resort to the devil to explain everything that ails them. And they seek revenge. So do the victims of the relatives, who are bent on tracking down and judging the "perpetrators" themselves if necessary. Only one person in the whole film behaves in a Christian way: the grandfather of one of the victims, who talks about forgiveness. Everyone else just listens uncomprehendingly. It becomes clear to us that the obsession with Satanism goes far beyond the circle of perpetrators.