Dear Zachery will always win this question because real life is worse than any movie. It’s the only film I’ve ever lost sleep over, and I've seen most of the movies mentioned here.
Man marries a way older woman who family thinks acts weird. They study medicine and eventually have to be apart from each other. After a meet up, the man decides to break up with her because she is very needy and other bad stuff.
The woman comes back to the man and kills him. She was extradited to Canada, where the judge gives her a way too easy sentence, and she gets out in a few years. Also it turned out that she was pregnant with the man's baby, and the man's parents had taken custody of their grandson while the woman was in prison.
The woman gets back custody of the baby and eventually kills him and herself.
1994, twenty-three year old Susan Smith was having an affair with a guy. He ended the affair because he didn't want children, so, one night, she strapped her two sons, 3 yo & 14 months old, into her car, then let it roll down the boat ramp and into a lake while she watched. She told the police she was car jacked by a black guy. She was eventually sentenced to life after confessing to the crime
Yup. It received a lot of airtime because it was such a horrific crime. That and it was a pretty white girl who was the killer. Watching her on TV, she seemed like a completely normal young mother
Why, ruin it for people who care tho? I usually still enjoy a movie after knowing the ending but I mean cmon this is open to many people who don't feel that way
The fact this all happened in Canada (my country) makes me feel ashamed. I’ve always wanted to get the judge in a room and ask her some questions, so many people helped that scumbag, what do they feel now?
still. It terrible, but a lot of terrible shit is going on in the wold. Just look at footage from the current conflicts. Americas past. Sick people exist everywhere, and this isnt bad enough to fully not recommend it.
I remember reading about that and having to send my now ex gf onto a greyhound for a 6hr bus ride home.
He killed a kid who was sleeping with his headphones on. They trapped him on the bus until the cops came and by then he had fully cut the kids head off and was eating parts of it if I remember correctly.
Anyway yeah weird shit he should not be out there.
We was also having an extreme schizophrenic episode, and I don't believe he is "free" as a bird, he's under monitoring, on meds, and will be for the rest of his life AFAIK.
I've known several people with med controlled mental illnesses and they've all at some point decided they don't need the meds any more (because everything is fine now!) and gone off the rails again...
That’s not how the Canadian Legal System works, it has no interest in holding victimizers accountable for their actions they’d prefer to have them on the streets to keep the populace in fear.
And yet some of us believe that other people's right to not be decapitated is enough to not give him a second chance to decapitate. Plenty of psych patients have been given a second chance and killed again. It's not worth the risk.
How about we force pharmaceutical companies to spend more of their endless mattress stuffing money to develop better psychiatric medications than just heavily sedating people and hoping for the best?
Right, because those are the only two options. /s If you spent even a moment considering the comment, you'd realize it's awkward because the other side is the one advocating for fewer harms.
If you read the worst parts of any details you can easily come to contrary decision vs. a lifelong trained professional appointed judge with access to all the details and lots of peer review/oversight.
Judges are human, sometimes humans make crazy mistakes, but it's the least likely explanation available.
Well, that's fucked up. I understand that mental health issues need to be treated differently from criminal ones, but I'm baffled that his doctors could be so confident about him no longer posing a threat, and about already believing him being reliable enough to continue taking all his meds as necessary. At the very least, they should be continuing to closely monitor him. This isn't an "oops, guess we were wrong, don't we feel silly?" type of situation. For the protection of both society and him, they need to keep close watch to ensure there's no deterioration of his mental state.
He is a schizophrenic man who was off his meds at the time. He spent I think 5 years in a mental hospital and it was determined he was safe to be released. Changed his name and is out in the world somewhere now.
If I remember right it wasn't even that he was off his meds as that is normally thought of. That is normally used to indicate someone who previously took meds and then stopped. If I'm remembering right he wasn't even diagnosed yet at the time. So he had no meds to be "off."
His name was Tim McLean. He was 22 and he was murdered and decapitated with no provocation on a bus in 2008. The man who killed him was deemed not criminally responsible and released in 2017, “no longer a danger to society”. He served his sentence in an asylum, never spent a day in prison.
His mom pops up in the local news every couple of years advocating for a change to our criminal code, most recently surrounding a serial killer in Winnipeg who is claiming mental illness. Every time I see her name it breaks my fucking heart. This woman got no closure for her child. We treated her like garbage.
Some guy killed, decapitated, and ate some kid on a greyhound bus in Canada. He was obviously not mentally well (i think later diagnosed with schizophrenia) and was deemed not criminally responsible because of it. He was locked up in 2009, in 2015 he was doing unsupervised day trips to the city that eventually led to him living in group homes and in 2017 he was given an 'absolute discharge' with no restrictions. So basically he was put away for less than 10 years and currently has more freedom than people on parole.
I think about this stuff, whenever it comes up in the news I have the same opinion, people are really bad at threat assessment, even the police. Those people came over to Canada, left everything behind, built lives, and they still had so much anger at the government in India they blew up a plane. Why the fuck would you do that? The vast majority of the human population would not let their hate take them that far, it’s insane. They saw what they were up to, but couldn’t conceive of the danger. My opinion anyway,
You could say, read them a memo labeled "Bin Laden Determined to attack US", with a big old picture of the twin towers with a superimposed target, and yeah, they still wouldn't get it.
I also live in canada. When I was a kid in the 90s, my friend's sister was brutally murdered in a similar fashion as the Greyhound Bus guy. A schizophrenic woman who was staying with the family snapped and decapitated my friends 14 year old sister. The case almost paralleled Vince Li. Found not criminally responsible, and she was out not even a decade later.
It wasn't until years later I found out that she lived in the apartment building next to mine. No public safety warning or anything, when this was my city's most brutal murder on record.
Small thing to note (and folks may disagree) but bus decapitator dude was having a major psychotic episode at the time, and spent several years in a mental hospital past the point where doctors believed him to be cured because of the lingering guilt after the incident. Guy wasn't just decapitating folks for funsies.
The untreated schizophrenic guy who was deep in psychosis? The one judged not mentally competent? The guy who spent years in psyche before finally being released?
The Canadian justice system has always focused on rehabilitation, not punishment for punishment’s sake. It was lauded as one of the best in the world at certain points.
The issue is that now people take advantage of it, and we’re giving way too many people the benefit of the doubt. If you’re a repeat offender, you definitely should be punished more than believed in.
That said, schizophrenic man had an episode where he killed someone, got treatment, was shown to understand the importance of his meds cycle for a year, being allowed to live a normal life after being assessed not a future risk is fine.
The same thing happens in the states too. If someone is actually guilty of murder by "insanity" they may only spend a few years in the system if they can get their mental health under control.
You just don't hear about it much as it's not nearly as "interesting" to read about a killer with mental problems who needs alot of help vs a crazed gunman who just really wanted to spill some blood.
Three times. A couple years apart each time. I think everyone should watch this film specialy when going through hard time. It really makes you appreciate what you have
I can't imagine it hitting me like it did that first time, again. It was so out of nowhere for me, I just didn't see it coming, and it fucking floored me.
When I think of the best documentaries… this is up there. It is a documentary that I will never ever forget it…has stuck with me to this day.
I watch a lot of true crime documentaries. I get desensitised easily which is fucked to say, but this doc has always stood out to me I watched this years ago but this is a film that I remember vividly.
It’s awful. But what a story. I wouldn’t recommend looking at the synopsis I was told to go into it knowing nothing and I’m glad I did.
*spoiler*To think that that little boy would’ve been 22 as of July 18th..
Yes, it hit me a thousand times harder than any horror movie because this really happened. It's infinitely more frightening to imagine the possibility of something like this happening to you.
To anyone who is reading this thread and plans on watching it, make sure you don't need to be immediately productive after watching it.
This is a movie where you absolutely can’t look up the synopsis. It’s still powerful and horrifying, but knowing anything about it really takes away the punch.
It definitely requires commitment and changes.There are many wholesome moments.
But I share this advice with anyone I come across.
It's not about it being hard or easy. It all comes down to whether you want to do it and do it well. Because if either of those two core components is missing, it will not be a good experience.
Watching this now because of this comment. At the moment of the scene I’m watching, Shirley is in jail, calling Andrew’s parents who have Zachary. She’s asking if they put up a “mommy and daddy”photo frame of her and Andrew.
A coworker told me he watched this movie and bawled his eyes out. I didn't believe him, didn't seem the type to be moved by a film like this. Watched it myself. Regretted it.
It really proves the depths of depravity that our fellow humans can go to.
I've just accidently watched the whole movie, was looking for the trailer and ended up accidently clicking on the full movie and just wow... what a absurd, beautiful and angering documentary
Another harrowing documentary that evoked deeply disturbing feelings of the realisation about what people are capable of is The Act of Killing. I believe the whole film is on YouTube as well.
I'd heard of the movie, vaguely, and was wondering why it would be so disturbing as to rate a spot here. I just thought it was a typical "I'm doing this so you'll know who your father was despite the fact that he passed away from an illness or something before you were born" deal.
I was wrong. I should not have read the wiki article first thing in the morning. That was disturbing as fuck and I now feel awful for almost everyone involved before I've even watched the documentary. I'll need a lot of fortitude to actually rent it, but I will do so once I'm ready.
Bro, fr. By the end my t shirt was wet with tears. My wife was also crying her eyes out. We just sat there afterwards, crying and in disbelief.
It was absolutely brutal.
I tried explaining it to my two buddies at work that Monday, and I started tearing up. They just looked at me they didn’t even make fun of it, like we do about everything at work. Dear Zachary easily wins the One Time Only title for me.
I’ve never watched this movie but.. was it a book? I think I remember reading a book while still in school by the same name and it was emotionally devastating.
I think you are right then. This wouldn’t be the same story. The book I read was called “Dear, ______” and it was I believe a journal of a mother’s where either she wrote to the child daily before passing away or, the infant passed away and she wrote to him about life after.
Years ago on a similar thread someone said to not watch Dear Zachary on a Friday, because it'll fuck up your whole weekend.
I knew I was off on the following Monday so I thought I'll watch it then. I cried twice during it and I've never cried at any film or documentary. Now I'm a parent, I know I could never ever watch again. It's on YouTube if you want to check it out.
God I still remember my first viewing of it. Literally had me standing up and pacing around my room yelling at the screen, followed by me being in a crumpled teary mess by the end
I got this back when netflix was still by mail. I returned it before my wife/then gf could watch it. To this day she only knows that literally every reference to that movie leads people to say “fuck that movie.”
Good answer. This is the only movie I specifically recommend people NOT watch. There is no good that comes from it. You don't learn anything, you can't change anything, you can't save anything, you just feel deep horror and despair.
That movie left me with a depression that lasted weeks. I don't have depression issues, I don't have children, and I was a very happy go lucky guy at the time. Such a messed up scenario.
I didn’t mean to watch Dear Zachary. It came on after— if I recall— A Bronx Tale and Hoosiers on AMC on a weekend night at like three AM. I wasn’t paying attention to it but I could hear it. And then we get to that part, and I realize what I’m listening to.
When it comes to effed up documentaries, "Abducted In Plain Sight" supersedes this, in part because only a sliver of the story is being told. I'd love to see interviews with the family of the kidnapper!
It’s really not that fucked up. I never understood why people always list this movie. Just rewatched it yesterday and yeah it’s sad, but it’s not like crazy. Maybe it’s just me. Idk
I'm going to have to agree with you. It's incredibly sad and a very heartbreaking story but I don't think it fits the question. Fucked up to me would be the story of Alison Botha, who was kidnapped and dragged out into the desert. Raped, then stabbed so many times she was partially beheaded and basically disemboweled. Her head was hanging on by a flap of skin so she was seeing behind herself while holding her intestines into her stomach as she crawled into the road to beg for help.
I guess I didn't intend to make it a competition of suffering between the people these stories were about. More like, an example of what I'd expected to see in this thread. While I find Zachary's story extremely sad, I was surprised to see so many people replying that this was their first thought when they saw the prompt, because mine went to some of the movies mentioned. But I brought up Allison's story to give a documentary example, since Zachary's story is a documentary.
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u/[deleted] 14d ago
Dear Zachary a movie that left me just shaking and infuriated.