Lost Women of Highway 20

LOST WOMEN OF HIGHWAY 20 (Documentary) 3 out of 10 stars Time to Read: 1:20min

BASIC PLOT: This documentary explorers (badly) a series of murders of women between 1978 and the early nineties. Everyone knew who was doing it, but no one would stop him, and innocent women died as a result.

WHAT WORKS: *THE CASE IS A GOOD STORY FOR A DOCUMENTARY It's just too bad that another group of filmmakers didn't get to this story first.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: *THIS NEEDED AN OUTLINE BEFORE IT WAS EVER FILMED This documentary is so confusing, I couldn't tell what was happening from one minute to the next. It jumps from place to place, back and forth in time, with no foreshadowing, or worse, bad foreshadowing, and in the end, I imagine a lot of people changing the channel. I watch A LOT of documentaries, 1000's by now, and I understand what a well laid out documentary should look like. It's not this.

*THE WHOLE FIRST EPISODE, THE FILMMAKERS INTIMATE JOHN ACKROYD IS A GOOD GUY This is a betrayal of the audience. There's this thing called foreshadowing, this way the audience has some semblance of what's going on. Not here! They do the opposite, with statements taken out of context, making the bad guy, into the good guy! Unbelievable! Again, WTH?

*THE FILMMAKERS DON'T GIVE US ENOUGH INFORMATION There aren't enough suspects to make the type of unveiling they are going for, work. Instead, they jump from year to year, going backwards and forward in time, jumping from victim to victim, with no consistency or cohesion.

*THE WEIRD LITTLE VOICEOVER COMMENTARY ABOUT THE FOREST WATCHING THE CRIMES, IS JUST FREAKING WEIRD! Really!? What the hell?!

TO RECOMMEND, OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION: *I can't recommend this documentary, and it's too bad, because these victims deserved better than this DISJOINTED mess. If you're looking for an interesting, non-exploitative, true crime documentary, I recommend instead The Killing Season (2016), an excellent true crime documentary about the LISKs, from filmmakers Joshua Zeman and Rachel Mills. It is engaging, well paced , and informative. If you're looking for another HBO doc, try instead the four part documentary, Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York (2023). It's a very graphic, compelling and well done documentary by Anthony Caronna and Howard Gertler. Another gripping, true crime documentary is The Eleven (2017). It's a six part documentary, prompted by a confession letter to a journalist, from a psychotic murderer, Edward Harold Bell. The journalist and a retired detective investigate the case.

CLOSING NOTES: *I have no connection to the film, or production in ANY way. This review was NOT written in full, or in part, by a bot. I am just an honest viewer, who wishes for more straight forward reviews (less trolls and fanboys), and better entertainment. Hope I helped you out.

Lost Women of Highway 20 highlights missing, murdered and raped women who were victimized by one "good ol boy" who was never held accountable by conservative small town police in rural Oregon. I know the Pacific Northwest has a reputation for being extremely liberal but rural Oregon is the kind of place Trump supporter's congregate. This is their world, so pay attention.

This isn't Alabama, it's not isolated to a certain neighborhood, this was America just 30 years ago within my own lifetime. The very idea that we could easily go backwards to this is absolutely terrifying. This man was patted on the back after raping an Indigenous woman and she was blamed, people knew that he killed another woman but because of how petty small town police departments were they wouldn't share information or cases that could have convicted him, an entire group of girls were being molested in the early 1990s and no one took them seriously....this show is off the chain but it is SO IMPORTANT to take note of this, because this isn't an isolated thing.

This is what lack of women's rights breeds in conservative rural areas.

Tragic story, most of the video time was talk, talk, talk, which bogged down into boredom. This was a serious situation. The husband is a murderous jerk who got away with too much, even when using preposterous alibis thanks to indifferent, disinterested Cops. The bottom line was "don't trust the local cops when you're out in the middle of nowhere." they Could have livened things up quite a bit by including some Big Foot or UFO sightings, or both, What you do see is a lot of 2-lane roads, plenty of trees, and lots of snow. Exciting stuff. Yeah, right. I Won't be watching the rest of the series. Disservice to the grieving relatives.

This was equally frustrating as it was cathartic. Having grown up and lived less than 100 miles from where these events took place, the places mentioned hold a certain familiarity for me. I admit that I hadn't heard of any of this when I grew up, so it was quite a shock. This documentary does a beautiful job of balancing the hunt for a monster, with the grieving that is done by the loved ones who were left to deal with their loss. It also highlighted the efforts and failures of the law enforcement. Some of them went above and beyond to help, while others shirked their duties. At the end of this, you're left with the chilling reminder to believe women and children when we speak out. I recommend this without hesitation.