Watching that NXIVM doc made me pick between being a follower or a skeptic

I sat down to watch The Vow last week and had to decide if I was going to believe everything the survivors said or question the editing. I ended up trusting the survivors because their details matched up with court records I looked up later. Has anyone else felt torn about which side to lean on while watching these documentaries?

3 comments

3 Comments

amyh126d ago

People act like every documentary is life or death.

nancy_king296d ago

Actually, I gotta push back a little here. I just watched The Rescue about the Thai cave boys in 2018, and those divers literally risked their lives. 5 hours of footage showing real people trapped underwater, that's not exactly casual viewing lol. The stakes were life or death for 12 kids and their coach, not just for drama. I get that some docs are overly dramatic with the music and editing, but this one was just straight facts because they had the actual radio recordings. Seems like you might be thinking of those sensationalized Netflix crime docs instead.

evan5436d agoProlific Poster

Wow, ok you make a really good point actually. But I gotta ask though, was there a single moment in that whole 5 hours where you felt like they were stretching the tension just for the sake of keeping you watching? Because I've seen some docs that are clearly gripping on their own but then the editing team adds all these dramatic pauses and slow motion shots that feel cheap. I'm not saying The Rescue is like that, I haven't seen it. But with the Thai cave story, the danger is so obvious that any extra drama would feel like overkill. Did it ever cross that line for you or was it really just the raw footage doing all the work?