I love documentaries, but I especially love dark documentaries -- films Netflix groups in the "dark" and "gritty" taste descriptors. Give me a bag of cookies and two hours of serial killers, drug epidemics or creepy hidden history and I'm happy as a clam. I could be reading true crime novels, guys, but I prefer my grit highbrow.
In no particular order, here are some dark and disturbing documentaries that I recommend and are available on Netflix Watch Instantly:
Cropsey
This one was legitimately creepy. On Staten Island, kids grew up fearing Cropsey, a sort of all-purpose boogey man said to have escaped from Willowbrook, a state-run mental institution. There were several disappearances of children in the 1970s and 80s, all blamed on "Cropsey," but were actually perpetrated by sex offender and former Willowbrook orderly Andre Rand. There are lots of tense scenes of the filmmakers stomping through the woods around the abandoned Willowbrook site and you half expect a feral mental patient to jump out from under a pile of leaves. On a side note, the story of Willowbrook is incredibly sad (yes, the book is by Geraldo, get over it). Here are some things RFK had to say about it.
The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia
The Whites are fucking nuts -- an Appalachian clog dancing dynasty of meth addicts, oxy addicts, alcoholics and criminals. The film is a sad and hot mess of abject poverty, a dead-end town, children taken by CPS at birth and the real terrors of addiction. There is a bit of romanticizing of the Appalachian outlaw schtick, but these folks are legitimately proud of who they are. Hank Williams III, connoisseur of white trash counter-culture that he is, glorified the life of the patriarch, D. Ray White, in song. D. Ray's son Jesco filled his father's dancing shoes and performs wherever people go to see a toothless drunk shuffling around on top of a picnic table. Also known as The Dancing Outlaw, Jesco is the subject of another documentary of the same name.
The Woodmans
A slow burn of the story of the photographer Francesca Woodman's suicide in 1981, told through interviews with her parents (also artists), brother and peers. Her pictures are stunningly dark, evocative and feminine (I really, really like them and I don't know how to talk about art), especially framed by the demons that lead her to jump out of the window of her New York loft.
Nightmare in Jamestown
I quote: "...famine, pestilence and cannibalism."
Canal Street Madam
New Orleans brothels!
The Thin Blue Line
You should have seen this already.
Deliver Us From Evil
Father Oliver O'Grady is a pedophile, but the Catholic Church doesn't seem to care much.
American Meth
Self-explanatory. Bonus: narrated by Val Kilmer.
A hefty amount of documentaries were added since I went on my last binge, but I'm not quite sure if I should be watching this stuff while pregnant. My dreams are already all kinds of fucked up (I've been Harry Potter in at least three dreams this week) and I'm trying to stay positive. Perhaps I'll queue some up for the long, sleepless nights with baby -- s/he won't notice, right?
If you want to watch something that makes you feel good but not sticky sweet, I suggest Bill Cunningham's New York.
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