Documentaries

This documentary examines a selection of real life serial killers and compares them to the fictional Hannibal Lecter.

Simon Armitage presents the extraordinary story of the most disturbing witch trial in British history and the key role played in it by one nine-year-old girl. Jennet Device, a beggar-girl from Pendle in Lancashire, was the star witness in the trial in 1612 of her own mother, her brother, her sister and many of her neighbours and, thanks to her chilling testimony, they were all hanged. In 'The Pendle Witch Child' poet Simon Armitage explores the lethal power and influence of one child's words - a story of fear, magic and demonic pacts retold partly with vivid and innovative hand-drawn animation. He discovers how Jennet's appearance in the witness box cast its shadow way beyond Lancashire, impressing lawyers, politicians, clerics and even the King himself and setting a dark precedent for child testimony in witch trials as far away as America. Finally, in a dramatic twist to the tale, he reveals how, 22 years after the original trial, Jennet's own words were very nearly the death of her - when she herself was put on trial, accused of being a witch by a 10-year-old boy. With the help of historians Malcolm Gaskill, Diane Purkiss and Ronald Hutton, Simon Armitage attempts to get inside Jennet's head and understand how the illegitimate and illiterate youngest child of a family of beggars could become both pawn and player in a much bigger story of 17th century religion, power, law, science and the monarchy. What made Jennet speak out so everyone she knew would die? And how did the courts decide to admit her evidence, and allow her example to create a precedent for accepting the testimony of other child witnesses who wanted to send their neighbours to the gallows? Although the events in this film may date back four hundred years, its issues resonate today as much as ever - when to believe our children, how the police and the court system should handle child witnesses and above all how, in times of crisis, fear of evil can easily lead us to behave in ways which may corrode the very values that we most wish to protect.

A look at a frightening condition that plagues thousands; sleep paralysis.

A child possessed. An exorcist locked in combat with an ancient evil. In the battle for saving a soul, just who really is the 'Hostage to the Devil'?

In Real Fear: The Truth Behind the Movies, Chiller investigates the terrifying factual stories that inspired some of the scariest horror movies of all time, including Silent Hill, The Amityville Horror, The Mothman Prophecies and Poltergeist, through exclusive eyewitness interviews and reenactments of actual events. Paranormal investigator Katrina Weidman (Paranormal State) travels with three of her friends into the dark recesses of the unknown to uncover the buried secrets behind these four iconic films. Journey down the haunted high-ways of the American East Coast on a road trip to discover the origins of our most beloved horror films. From a grisly series of murders in the small town Amityville to a devastating, subterranean fire in the rural town of Centralia...From the eye-witness reports of the inexplicable, red-eyed creature known as Mothman to the documented paranormal activity that inspired Poltergeist...The movies may be fiction, but the fear is very, very real...

Where did syphilis come from?

For the first time in 35 years, Daniel Lutz recounts his version of the infamous Amityville haunting that terrified his family in 1975.

What if you were making a documentary about a gang of serial killers and they found out?

A small town is overcome by a massive underground mine fire which began in 1962. As a result, hundreds of residents had to be relocated.

Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside the Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater, where people stay trapped in their madness.

Stone Phillips presents never-before-seen footage from his "Dateline NBC" interview with serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer recorded in 1994.

Psychological experiment where volunteer college students role-played guards and prisoners. Guards became abusive, prisoners experienced distress. Study ended early due to unethical conditions developing from situational roles.

An urban mystery unfurls as one man pieces together the surreal meaning of hundreds of cryptic tiled messages that have been appearing in city streets across the U.S. and South America.

"The Six Degrees of Helter Skelter" walks in the footsteps of the Manson Family, visiting over 40 locations related to the infamous Tate/LaBianca murders, and tying together the dozens of odd connections between Charles Manson and the Hollywood elite. Entertainingly led by famous Hollywood historian Scott Michaels (E!'s 20 Most Horrifying Hollywood Murders, Dearly Departed: Vol. 1, FindADeath.com), this epic documentary employs never-before-seen autopsy reports (analyzed with the help of the Los Angeles Department of the Coroner), dozens of rare photographs, original Manson Family music recordings, and modern-day visits to the locations where the action went down, in the most complete retelling of the Manson Murders ever put on film.

Five years after an unexplained malfunction causes the death of 15 tour-goers and staff on the opening night of a Halloween haunted house tour, a documentary crew travels back to the scene of the tragedy to find out what really happened.

A film that successfully argued that a man was wrongly convicted for murder by a corrupt justice system in Dallas County, Texas.

The story of two coalitions -- ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) -- whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition.

A documentary about the disastrous 1968 round-the-world yacht race.

A year with one platoon in the deadliest valley in Afghanistan.

Confined in an apartment from a New York housing project, the six Angulo brothers learned everything they know about the world through watching films and spend their time reenacting their favorite movies with intricate homemade costumes.

Filmmaker Matthew Heineman examines the state of the ongoing drug problem along the U.S.-Mexican border.

A documentary on 85-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono, his renowned Tokyo restaurant, and his relationship with his son and eventual heir, Yoshikazu.

A documentary series on the wildlife found on Earth. Each episode covers a different habitat: deserts, mountains, deep oceans, shallow seas, forests, caves, polar regions, fresh water, plains and jungles. Narrated by David Attenborough.

Chronicles three underprivileged students from inner-city Memphis and their volunteer coach who tries to help them beat the odds on and off the field.

A documentary which challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.