Village of the Damned

Well, a cursed city is a horror brand,as a docu series its more shady.ive heard about the city called dryden somewhere in canada,but this was definately not the same.being norwegian,my mind thinks that every u.s. city has issues with murder,stalking and general crime at a higher level than where i live in aakrehamn,a city of 7000 inhabitants.i guess we have a real murder every 4-5 yrs,so i guess we have been spared alot. the dryden history is tragic,and i really hope coincidental,otherwise there must be issues with the schools,health services or the police-departments in the city of dryden,some of it could or should have been discovered before it was too late.ok,enough digression.

i love the way this series are made,its based on factual happenings,and the way the dramatization of the history is done,are brilliantly told, through interviews with the victims,friends,families,police,defendants and by the use of media clips.the cronology makes it stunningly exciting,the filming, acting and editing over average.it really touches strings of emotions.i watched all 5 eps in one turn and i was lost.......

there are some slow pace inbetween,and a bit repetitive storytelling due to comercial breaks,but overall very well made.i will hope the cursed genie of dryden has been corked back in its bottle,cause now we all know whats up in the city of dryden,USA.

Each episode contains cases that immediatly suck you into the story. The first handful of episodes are interesting and contain great detail that most true crime fans crave. Unfortunately, it seems like they get a bit watered down with the last 2 episodes. Especially in the case of the two missing teenagers. Much information seems to be withheld or missing for viewers - which leave them tempted to simply google the case to get the rest of the details they are seeking and about the murderer and about what exactly happened to the cheerleaders.

The subject matter of this documentary is totally warranted, I will say that right away. The first crime is horrific; actual horror-movie-level stuff and so is the last, but the crimes in the middle can all be explained away by post-partum psychosis or untreated schizophrenia, so I really had to stick with it about half way through since I started to feel like they were grasping at straws just to make a lurid case for this village being cursed ...but at the end, the viewer certainly feels impressed about the sheer mathematical odds of all of these things happening to such a small group of people within a decade.

HOWEVER, the makers of this film could have done a MUCH better job with details - if only they had emphasized in real numbers how small the population was, and how ridiculously eerily tiny the high school attendance in the 1990s (where many of the deaths lead back to in some shape or form). Just simply stating statistical facts alone would have made this documentary that much more believable and eerie.

That's not all. There are a bunch of unnecessary scenes of an unrelated town waitress giving her running commentary on each crime though she does not appear to have anything to do with any of the incidents, other than living in Dryden her entire life. The time wasted on that and some other manipulative, tear-jerking content should have been replaced with more details about the murder of Coach Starr and the rape and torture of the two cheerleaders. Even after watching hours of this show, you have to Google the crimes to get a more comprehensive view of what really happened from an archived 2001 news article.