This film tells the story of the trial of three teenagers who were accused of killing three young boys for human sacrifice in a small town back in 1990's.
Given the subject matter, one might expect the film to be a tear jerker. It tells how three teenagers who were obsessed with Satanism got blamed for the murders. The whole town thinks they did it, and the film spends a whole lot of time presenting circumstantial evidence that they did commit the crime. At times, the film also present some evidence that the murderer might have been someone else, but the presentation of this was so poor that I did not know what the scenes signify until much later.
For example, when the owner of a restaurant calls the police about a man covered in blood, the scene is poorly presented and then forgotten until much later, when the scene is presented in new light that actually makes a difference to the plot. Another example is that the discovery of a pocket knife by Pam quite late in the film. Nothing is mentioned about a pocket knife until that scene, and the significance of it is told haphazardly right at the end. The delivery of the story was too one-sided against the teenagers to start with, that the contrary evidence does not create any suspense or thrill; or makes any sense until the ending.
It is a pity that the plot was so disjointed. It makes me care less for the characters than I should.
Given the subject matter, one might expect the film to be a tear jerker. It tells how three teenagers who were obsessed with Satanism got blamed for the murders. The whole town thinks they did it, and the film spends a whole lot of time presenting circumstantial evidence that they did commit the crime. At times, the film also present some evidence that the murderer might have been someone else, but the presentation of this was so poor that I did not know what the scenes signify until much later.
For example, when the owner of a restaurant calls the police about a man covered in blood, the scene is poorly presented and then forgotten until much later, when the scene is presented in new light that actually makes a difference to the plot. Another example is that the discovery of a pocket knife by Pam quite late in the film. Nothing is mentioned about a pocket knife until that scene, and the significance of it is told haphazardly right at the end. The delivery of the story was too one-sided against the teenagers to start with, that the contrary evidence does not create any suspense or thrill; or makes any sense until the ending.
It is a pity that the plot was so disjointed. It makes me care less for the characters than I should.