Paradise Lost 2: Revelations
On May 5, 1993, three 8-year-old boys were brutally murdered in the rural town of West Memphis, Arkansas. About a month later, local authorities arrested three troubled teens - Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin -- following Misskelley's admission that they had raped and murdered the young children as part of a Satanic ritual. The three young men were tried and convicted, and Echols (the purported ringleader) was sentenced to death row.
The Oscar-nominated 1996 documentary Paradise Lost told the story of the murders and subsequent trial, and asked a troubling question: Were the three teens actually innocent, the victims of a modern-day witch hunt by a deeply religious community that ostracized them for their dress and musical tastes? The film raised serious questions about the investigation and trial, from Misskelley's alleged "confession" to alternate suspects who were curiously overlooked.
Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, directed like the first by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, is the riveting continuation of this story. If you've never seen the original, don't let that dissuade you from checking out Revelations -- it contains more than enough clips from the original to quickly bring you up to speed.
This disturbing film follows three occasionally overlapping story lines. One thread examines the West Memphis 3 support group, an organization that was founded in reaction to the first film and works to exonerate the "West Memphis 3." Another focuses on Mark Byers, the father of one of the victims and a possible alternate suspect. Finally, there's the agonizingly slow, uphill appeals process that Misskelley, Echols and Baldwin are fighting.
The section on the West Memphis 3 support group occasionally rambles, but there's no denying the importance of this grassroots organization. They started a website, www.wm3.org, which is an invaluable source of information about the case. They also helped hire a forensics specialist who discovered a key piece of evidence: a mark on one of the victim's foreheads that he believes is a bite mark.
That bite mark is one of the primary pieces of evidence put forth by Echols' defense team, because tests show that it doesn't match the teeth of Echols, Baldwin or Misskelley. Will this piece of evidence be enough to free the convicted men?
Appearing intermittently is the bizarre character of Byers. Since being exposed as a possible suspect in the first film, Byers has had numerous run-ins with the authorities and suffers from a variety of mental ailments. If these strange tidbits and Byers' loony on-screen antics aren't enough to get you wondering, consider this: All of Byers' teeth have been removed, and although he claims they were taken out in the early '90s, dental records show that they were removed much more recently. The list of questions the film raises goes on and on...
Why did Misskelley get key details of the crime wrong during his "confession"? Why, if the murders were part of a Satanic crime, was there no evidence of such a ritual at the crime scene? Why was there no blood found at the crime scene if the victims were killed as the prosecution states? Why weren't other leads pursued more thoroughly? Are the police and the judicial system so wed to their original case that they can't keep an open mind to new evidence? Sadly, by film's end you'll wonder if these questions will ever be answered.
Others are wondering as well. Celebrities such as Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder and "South Park" creator Trey Parker are calling for a new trial. And Metallica, moved by the fact that its T-shirts and lyrics were used as "evidence" against Echols and Baldwin, allowed its music to be featured in both films, a first for the band.
Paradise Lost 2: Revelations is one of the most powerful, haunting films in recent memory. In an ironic twist, it's being released to video on the same day as Hannibal, a so-called horror film that doesn't come close to matching the nightmarish visions of Revelations.
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