Grimmest documentaries you've seen

[bgmnts]

Fuck me, tooth pus bursting through bone.

That's medically grim.

[Cuellar]

There's a bit in the doc where they show a skull from the Victorian era, and below the teeth in the jaw itself are these odd looking holes.



We discover they were chambers of pus that develop when the pulp of the tooth becomes infected. The pus has nowhere else to go and bursts through the bone itself.
Apparently it was rather painful.

Fuck I wish they'd had youtube in those days.

[MortSahlFan]

Le Joli Mai -- at one point, these intellectuals are talking about 25 hour work weeks because of automation (and this was 50 yrs ago!), and the other one says "But we can have this now"

[Retinend]

This old Cook Report episode on 'child porn' is super grim - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkQ0EQLmO4w&t=319s


Not just the subject matter which is as bleak and sleazy as imaginable, but the style of the documentary itself is a bit troubling. Cooks bull in a china shop approach probably isn't the best way to tackle the subject, there's one scene where he confronts a paedophile in his house and makes him burn his child porn photos on the fire, which is unbelievable. Also they show too much of some of the material for anyone to be comfortable with in 2018.

The tacit tolerance towards such magazines as late as 1987 puts the "paedogeddon" hysteria of the late 90s in a new, more positive, context.

At 11:33 (NSFW) the German reads: "of course, Sex Ed - painted in a positive light - is like a red rag to a bull to conservatives, since it runs against their doctrinaire beliefs to hear from those who wish to champion sexual emancipation, and therefore endangering their ideal notions of [sex for] procreation and societal order."

11:34 in French, a small ad reads: "Doctor aged 34 searching for little girls (9-13) for intimate relations. I am willing to travel, or pay for the travel of those interested"

11:39 German: "...Lolita-lover searching for a horny family with a small daughter for an enduring friendship"
"Slim young man (35) searching for a mother with daughter for photos and tender sex: all well-paid and entirely private."

[Retinend]

It reminds me of another grim documentary dealing with child pornography: "The Boy with the Henna Tattoo"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEi5zYNSRuQ

[biggytitbo]

Some of the worst true crime stuff I've ever seen comes from Australia, what is wrong with those antipodean sickos? Peter Scully for instance - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Scully who made child porn snuff films and sold them on the dark web. The name of his most notorious production is the stuff of nightmares.

[Lordofthefiles]

Why did I read THAT?!

[Retinend]

You've set me off on a rabbit hole of terrible news stories.... you're quite right that this dark web pedophile crime seems better covered and investigated in the antipodes, but I think that is to their credit.

[buzby]

This week's Storyville doc on BBC4 was quite grim - The Deminer, a real-life version of The Hurt Locker, which followed Major Fakhir Ibrahim Mohammad, a Kurdish bomb disposal expert armed with only a pair of wirecutters who served in the Iraqi army disarming IEDs around Mosul between 2003 and 2008 and after the invasion by IS in 2014.

The story is told by his son, using footage filmed by the Major's assistants (he seems to have had a camera on him constantly). and later by the documentary makers themselves. It's pretty clear from the start that you know how the story is going to end, but it is still totally engrossing. It's currently available on iplayer

[chveik]

some episodes of the belgian tv series Strip-Tease are amongst the bleakest things I've ever seen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip-Tease_(TV_series)
unfortunately I don't think that it's available in english, but if there are french speakers here, you should check it out, it's really great (and really depressing obviously).

[Retinend]

You forgot to link to the episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTljLU4Tb2jcW9n23APDwZg/videos

[Ringside]

Some of the worst true crime stuff I've ever seen comes from Australia, what is wrong with those antipodean sickos? Peter Scully for instance - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Scully who made child porn snuff films and sold them on the dark web. The name of his most notorious production is the stuff of nightmares.

The Peter Scully shit is truly awful. Easily some of the worst crimes I've ever read about, and the cunt seems to show no remorse or compassion.

[biggytitbo]

There's an Australian program, something like 60 minutes, where they interview him and he comes across as such a whining, pissy nonentity. A real devoid husk of a man.

[ASFTSN]

Biggy, that wikipedia link is some of the most concisely disturbing stuff I've ever read on the internet. I should have known what I was getting when I clicked on this thread (again) but there you go.

[BlodwynPig]

Biggy, that wikipedia link is some of the most concisely disturbing stuff I've ever read on the internet. I should have known what I was getting when I clicked on this thread (again) but there you go.

Be advised not to read into the details of his associates (names redacted to avoid being the enabler)...christ.

[jobotic]

Be advised not to read into the details of his associates (names redacted to avoid being the enabler)...christ.

I won't. That wikipedia link was very upsetting.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Couldn't help imagine jobotic's last post in bob mortimer's footballer voice

[SteveDave]

Couldn't help imagine jobotic's last post in bob mortimer's footballer voice

It's put me in a right flufferty bufferty!

[Moribunderast]

I'm thankful that enough time has passed that I've forgotten the exact details of Peter Scully's crimes. I do remember when I did read about him and his videos that they sent me into a near week-long depression. Never opening that can of worms again.

The Cleaners is a new doco that is pretty grim. Mostly focuses on a few people from Manila who work as Facebook moderators/censors, which essentially means they have to sift through up to 25,000 pictures/videos per day of all manner of horrifying filth. 5 minutes in a woman describes in-depth a video she watched on her first day that had me wishing I'd chosen a different doco to watch. I certainly wouldn't last a day in that job - but then again I'm not in a position where I would have to consider taking a job like that, unlike the poor fuckers in this film. They discuss one employee who fell into a depression as he'd spent years in a department where he had to watch live-streamed self-harm videos every day. That should not be a job. Fuck.

[Retinend]

On Netflix: "The American Meme" - strangely depressing, despite dealing with the glamorous and monied lives of online instagram influencers, including out generation's Marilyn Monroe, Paris Hilton.

[Mr Banlon]

"Requiem For Tina Sanchez" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1_o1MRKsCA
Mid 70s documentary about teenage runaways on NYC's Minnesota Strip.

[hedgehog90]

Grimmer still, if infinitely more problematic, is Kiyotaka Tsurisaki's documentary feature Orozco the Embalmer. Worth seeing, for sure, but grim grim grim as creation's dark.

I could go on about this for days. I'll stop here.

Finally got round to seeing this yesterday, based on Duke's recommendation from 7 years ago.

I didn't know what to expect... I expected something unspeakably awful... I expected to be disgusted, disturbed and outraged in equal measure... but I did not expect to be inspired... by the sheer inventiveness of a craftsman and an artist... as he inverted a woman's head... and stuffed it full of newspaper... before balancing a bit of skull on top... and bashed the contents into shape... with all the grace of a child having a tantrum.

[Moribunderast]

Sorry for necro-bumping this thread but I think it's a valuable thread and I prefer to add to it rather than start a one-off thread for a fairly obscure documentary.

REWIND - A new documentary mostly told using old home video footage documenting a family that seems happy on the outside while hiding unfathomably grim secrets. The director, Sasha Joseph Neulinger, is incredibly brave and candid, as are other family members, in revealing the magnitude of what was happening to them while they seemed so joyful in these family videos.

It's really powerful, profoundly upsetting but ultimately uplifting in what it's trying to do. I highly recommend it for people that can stomach grim documentaries but it really does belong in this thread - it brought to mind Dear Zachary, Just Melvin Just Evil and Capturing The Friedmans. Which are three films I generally try to keep far away from my mind.

[Twit 2]

Some of the worst true crime stuff I've ever seen comes from Australia, what is wrong with those antipodean sickos? Peter Scully for instance - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Scully who made child porn snuff films and sold them on the dark web. The name of his most notorious production is the stuff of nightmares.

I mean, this Peter Scully guy? This guy was a real jerk!

[Big Mclargehuge]

The Silent Minority:

A TV Documentary from 1981 focussing on St. Lawrences Hospital in Surrey. I don't really want to use the term "It's an hour showing the final throws of 'Bedlem' " but in all honesty I really cant find better words to describe it. It's absolutely unflinchingly brutal and awful and as someone who's worked in a support capacity within the current mental health system it's genuinely stunned me that there was ever a time when whats seen below was considered acceptable, letalone normal...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qb424HvKSQ&list=LLDBjuD7YtbV5Sk2dMfxV85g&index=96&t=0s

[peanutbutter]

The Silent Minority:

A TV Documentary from 1981 focussing on St. Lawrences Hospital in Surrey. I don't really want to use the term "It's an hour showing the final throws of 'Bedlem' " but in all honesty I really cant find better words to describe it. It's absolutely unflinchingly brutal and awful and as someone who's worked in a support capacity within the current mental health system it's genuinely stunned me that there was ever a time when whats seen below was considered acceptable, letalone normal...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qb424HvKSQ&list=LLDBjuD7YtbV5Sk2dMfxV85g&index=96&t=0s

Not 100% sure this is the right doc, but I remember watching one about Willowbrook that was pretty fucking grim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpVEjzO6Dd0

[Dex Sawash]

Did I put American Hollow in the thread already? Winter's Bone type grim story of East Tennessee mountain family with a matriarch who got kicked in head by a mule in 1950.

[BlodwynPig]

The Silent Minority:

A TV Documentary from 1981 focussing on St. Lawrences Hospital in Surrey. I don't really want to use the term "It's an hour showing the final throws of 'Bedlem' " but in all honesty I really cant find better words to describe it. It's absolutely unflinchingly brutal and awful and as someone who's worked in a support capacity within the current mental health system it's genuinely stunned me that there was ever a time when whats seen below was considered acceptable, letalone normal...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qb424HvKSQ&list=LLDBjuD7YtbV5Sk2dMfxV85g&index=96&t=0s

"After 40 years in bed, he progressed to a bean bag, and there he stayed for another 10 years"

fucking hell.

[Hand Solo]

American Hollow

Well, howdy paahdner!

[Cuntbeaks]

The Silent Minority:

A TV Documentary from 1981 focussing on St. Lawrences Hospital in Surrey. I don't really want to use the term "It's an hour showing the final throws of 'Bedlem' " but in all honesty I really cant find better words to describe it. It's absolutely unflinchingly brutal and awful and as someone who's worked in a support capacity within the current mental health system it's genuinely stunned me that there was ever a time when whats seen below was considered acceptable, letalone normal...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qb424HvKSQ&list=LLDBjuD7YtbV5Sk2dMfxV85g&index=96&t=0s

Brutal stuff. Shades of the Bulgaria's Abandoned Children documentary.