The Carman Family Deaths (2025) Dir: Yon Motskin

This 2025 true crime documentary, directed by Yon Motskin, seems almost to be as divisive as the case it depicts. I had no idea what to expect - I was neither familiar with the filmmaker or the case they were covering. As always, I hoped for a respectful and at least mostly unbiased account of the events, but I do always worry about documentaries like this, especially when a mystery element is involved in it.

It's safe to say that this was one wild documentary - it went in so many different directions, and seemed to jump from opinion to opinion at the drop of a hat. On the one hand, this did at least keep me engaged, but on the other, it felt like the film had no real interest in evaluating what actually happened in the case, and was more concerned with confusing it's audience as much as possible.

It didn't help matters that the vast majority of the film was very overly dramatised - it almost felt like watching one of those late night true crime documentaries you'd see on freeview. It wasn't great. A murky case like this needs clarity - in terms of information and presentation - and this film gave it very little. It was hard to sus out what exactly really happened, when the film had no interest in conveying that.

Overall, I found this to be an incredibly frustrating and unsatisfying watch, which was evidently more focused on so-called entertainment than it was conveying the case in as clear and as concise a way as possible. It doesn't help that the authorities were more interested in their own theory than the potential truth - stop me if you think you've heard that before. I digress, I was not keen on this film.