Movie Recommendation of the Week: "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" (2011)

My Movie Recommendation of the Week:

 

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

Directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky

 

 

"PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY, the new installment of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s series about the notorious 1993 “West Memphis Three” child murders, chronicles the 18-year fight to prove the innocence of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley.

 

On May 5, 1993, the bodies of three eight-year-old boys were found next to a muddy creek in the wooded Robin Hood Hills area of West Memphis, Arkansas. A month later, three teenagers, Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelley, were arrested, accused and convicted of brutally raping, mutilating and killing the boys. Following trials fraught with innuendoes of satanic worship, emotionally charged statements and allegations of coerced confessions, the defendants were convicted, despite a lack of physical evidence linking them to the crime. The HBO films PARADISE LOST: THE CHILD MURDERS AT ROBIN HOOD HILLS (1996) and PARADISE LOST 2: REVELATIONS (2000) sparked a national discussion about the innocence or guilt of the West Memphis 3.

 

PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY, produced by Radical Media resumes the examination of a horrifying crime and it’s aftershocks with Echols still on death row and Baldwin and Misskelley still serving life sentences, and follows the story all the way to it’s stunning conclusion. For nearly two decades, Berlinger and Sinofsky have followed this story with extraordinary access to all of the players on both sides of this tragedy...

 

PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY reveals recent DNA and other forensic evidence (unavailable at the time of the murders), as well as other troubling developments, including allegations of juror misconduct, that suggest the trio did not receive a fair trial. The film includes new interviews with Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley, who are now in their 30s, and many of the subjects of the first two documentaries, including John Mark Byers and Terry Hobbs, stepfathers of two of the victims and frequent targets of the media (and each other)." (http://paradiselost3themovie.com)

 

 

If anyone hasn't seen the first two documentaries, I highly recommend that you watch them first before watching this one. Trust me, it's well worth it.