Murder Mountain

A story of murder, guns, drugs, corruption, vigilantism, poverty, greed and idealism. As unsatisfying the results of the main case in this documentary are, the future gets an equally bleak outlook for the county from the film makers. A bad look for the cannabis industry too. I'm glad I watched the whole thing because the first 2 or so episodes had me asking if this was a Reefer Madness 2.0 type of thing. It isn't but it really doesn't take a positive view. But one of the things that really stood out was the incompetent and overwhelmed police. The enforcement at the end highlights how broken everything is.

This doc captures not only the true crime facet, but also the problems with black and white market marijuana farming in California, which is proving to be the testing ground for the rest of the country. Ten stars all the way- was hooked from the opening scene.

Overlong with much repetition and some reconstructions in poor taste.

However the subject is very interesting in itself especially the failure of the war on drugs (and how close it was to really being a war in Humboldt county) and the success (apparently) of legalization...

I am lived, very close to Alderpoint from 1979 to 1985. This documentary is so accurate, and so haunting, I can't stop thinking about it. It really hits the nail on the head for where Humboldt County came from and where it went into the 80s and 90s. It was paradise when we first moved there it was a war zone when we finally left.

Murder Mountain is, ultimately, an in-depth look at a family trying to seek justice for a murdered loved one in an area that has been defined by its "lawlessness" for generations due to the large amount of illegal cannabis grows once found there. Humboldt County, California is known for its "Emerald Triangle", where most of the illegal cannabis in the U.S.A. used to be grown and has gone through intense upheaval due to the legalization of cannabis in California (everybody wants a piece of the monetary pie). Lurking behind the cannabis industry, legal or illegal, are the sobering statistics regarding the amount of missing people in the region, the number of unsolved murders, and other crime stats this documentary didn't delve into, and a Sheriff's Office that's more intent on the cannabis industry than anything else (they'll say it's because illegal grows are the root of all evil, however, taxation and money appear to have a lot more influence on their actions than the causation of crime). The documentary, also, exposes what happens when a way of life is obliterated in the name of progress.