20 Documentaries That Scared the Hell Out of People
Documentaries have long held a reputation for being boring, typically conjuring the sights and sounds of some old British guy droning on about the majesty of the dung beetle that’s mostly suited for lulling you to sleep after a long night of watching actually exciting content. But those are your grandma’s documentaries. These days, with the true-crime boom and a new wave of investigative journalism, you can delve into an exposé of modern society’s seedy, slightly sticky underbelly or a 20-part series examining every facet of a serial killer’s mind.
That’s the sort of thing Redditor DirectionBasic3386 was looking for when they asked r/Movies, “What is the scariest documentary you’ve ever seen?” “I am a big horror genre fan,” they explained, “but truth is scarier than fiction, so I also really love documentaries,” noting that “a couple of the scariest documentaries I’ve seen are Jesus Camp and The Imposter.”
Reddit agreed and also supplied serial killers, prison riots, all kinds of abuse, and… tickling? Seriously, hear them out.
The Act of Killing
Into the Deep: The Submarine Murder Case
Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer
Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes
New Mexico Penitentiary
Gladiator Days: Anatomy of a Prison Murder
The Dust Bowl
Man in Hole
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
The Bridge
Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis
The Sinking of the Concordia: Caught on Camera
Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster
Child of Rage: A Story of Abuse
Inside North Korea
The Nightmare
The Cove
Dominion
Dark Days
Tickled
