West of Memphis

The case of the "West Memphis Three", an alleged miscarriage of justice in which a trio of teenagers was convicted for the brutal murder of three eight-year-old boys in 1993, has already been the subject of a number of excellent documentaries, key among them the Paradise Lost trilogy by directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. This sober exploration of the cause célèbre is very much in the vein of Errol Morris's The Thin Blue Line and is produced by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson who took an active interest in the case in the noughties. It may be a surprise to people familiar with the story - the accused were convicted on highly dubious "evidence" and a possibly coerced confession by a jury who saw their love of rock music as being in some way satanic - that there is anything left to say. But this rigorously researched film does indeed add to the account, not least in challenging the accepted version of how the three boys were actually killed and in its shocker of an ending which points the finger of blame in a direction that is both surprising and convincing.