Villisca: Living with a Mystery: Review By Mushy

Villisca - Living with a Mystery is a strongly crafted doc*mentary that looks at a family that was brutally murdered in 1912. Telling the story from many different angles, the doc*mentary takes on the form of a whodunit? As the years have passed and the generations have told and retold the story, it stands to reason that over time, the story would get more convoluted in how it was told. Villisca - Living with a Mystery does it's best to present as much of the evidence and the facts as possible. In the end, it's final summation, right or wrong, seems to at least make an argument that during the time that the main events in the film took place, many important facts and occurrences got lost in the shuffle.

One could try and break down the film and explain all the angles by which it tries to tell it's story, but what Villisca - Living with a Mystery does so well is capture the time in which it is covering. This film has that small town feel in every frame. Which makes the events the movie chronicles that much more shocking. At the same time, as it begins to tell the story there is an eery quality that builds throughout this movie that, like most cases involving killers, never goes away.

Commentary Tracks

There are two commentary tracks on this disc. One features the filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle and the other features Villisca historian Dr. Edgar V. Epperly. Depending on your tastes both of these commentary tracks have their merits. The filmmaker one obviously focuses a little more on that angle, while the one with Dr. Epperly explains the information in the film a bit more.

Additional Scenes

With titles like "The Sleeping Porch" and "Bragging to His Girlfriends," there are are 11 additional scenes in total. In all honesty, they could have left these off this disc and I probably wouldn't have missed them. I say this because the film itself is so solidly constructed and put together. I never got the sense that any stones were left unturned, but knowing that it took the filmmakers quite a long time to compile everything for this film, it stands to reason that there would be quite of a bit of extra footage for a DVD release.

Behind the Scenes

A featurette that gives us an interesting look at how this movie was made. We see Rundle preparing shots with his cinematographer, how the scenes for the reenactment sequences were put together and overall, we get a look at how this movie was made. There is a sparseness to this "behind the scenes" featurette that I think serves this DVD well.

Radio Broadcasts

In this segment we get radio spots from the film as well as "Iowa Story: The Axe Murders." This is an old time radio broadcast that presents the film that Rundle has made in an audio format from 1963. While it is obviously different and not nearly as comprehensive, it might be a good idea to listen to some of this before you watch the film. If nothing else, this will orient you within the story of Villisca.

Computer Animation

Now this is scary. It is the full computer animation that is used throughout the film. It is presented with music and even though it is fairly simple and tame, there is an ominous aspect to this featurette. Definitely the kind of thing to watch late at night with the lights off.

Full Screen - Theatrical Mode - 1.33:1. Mixing talking heads with voice overs and still photos, I found that this movie oozed with the story it was telling. I love how it set everything up within the town, giving us a strong sense of it's geography and it's history, and from there it proceeded to let the events that seem to define the town unfold. I also think the quality of this DVD as far as it's transfer and compression are concerned are top notch as well.

English - Stereo. As this film is highly dependent on mood and tone, it therefore depends on all facets of the audio. From this movie's almost symphonic-like score, to the voice over that seems to present the facts like a coroner's report, Villisca - Living with a Mystery strikes just the right chord between being informative and entertaining. Even with the wealth of content that this DVD has, I didn't notice any dropouts in the audio or places where it became bad or inaudible.

This packaging features artifacts from the murders in Villisca as well as a shot of the town from many years ago. The back features more artifacts pertaining to the murders, a description of the film, a "Special Features" listing, a credits list and some technical specs. Truthfully, the packaging for this disc is the only thing that I see as a problem. This movie has a very studious aspect to it. It's the kind of film that could do well in the education market, but could also do well as piece of "normal" entertainment. The thing is, this packaging makes it look too educational and that could be a turn off to some consumers.

I think the saddest statement about the home video market today is that if the film's Director, Kelly Rundle, hadn't contacted me, I never would have found out about this movie. While I know that a film like Villisca - Living with a Mystery isn't going to burn up the DVD or box office charts, it certainly does have an audience. Rundle and his wife Tammy put together a year long theatrical run for this film and they actually made money. So there obviously are people that want to see these kinds of films and I can't understand why some distributor hasn't caught on to this underserved audience.

While it is a different kind of horror movie, in many ways I think Villisca - Living with a Mystery, is more terrifying than many of the films that get much higher profile theatrical and home video releases.