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Mr Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred Leuchter, Jr (1999) Certificate Ex

Mr Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred Leuchter, Jr
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Rated 3.0 stars
Average rating
(61%)
 
Starring: Fred Leuchter. Jr
Director: Errol Morris
Studio: LACE GROUP
Run time: 90 mins
Genres: Documentary
Languages: English
Released: September 14, 2009

From Errol Morris, the award-winning director of The Thin Blue Line, comes the provocative and chilling true story of Fred A. Lauchter, Jr., the son of a prison worker and a self-taught execution expert who consulted with prisons across the country to make capital punishment more humane. When Leuchter is called in as a high-profile expert in a sensationalistic Canadian trial, his ego, bravado and absurd testimony reach national media prominence.

Highest rated reviews

4 out of 4 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 3 stars
I think this was on TV...

A Customer from London, 16th September, 2009

...and there was one really creepy bit, that was merely an aside for the main topic of this documentary. It's where Lauchter shows us a picture that he took of an old electric chair (unoccupied at the time) using a normal camera, and, freakily, the picture came out showing an 'aura' around the chair; although nothing was especially defined it really seemed to show pain and terror and madness. Shat me right up it did. Am going to rent this as it was a good documentary, but I'd like to see that bit again, as I couldn't find that image on the internet after I'd seen this first time.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review helpful:

*** May contain spoilers ***


Rated 3 stars
Worth watching, unless...

A Customer from Beckenham, 13th October, 2009

you have read The Execution Protocol (Stephen Trombley), which pretty covers pretty well all of this film with interviews with Fred. The film mainly covers Fred's examination of the deathcamps at Auschwitz and Birkenau, and his presentations at revisionist meetings which came as the result of his findings. Fred was later to regret the involvement that turned him into a poster boy for the Holocaust denial movement and it is a pity that this did not come out in the film, as for all his faults he does appear to be genuine in his beliefs.

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