Bridgewater Film Fest -- Boston Strangler

As I discuss in two earlier posts -- Bridgewater State ... What? (2009) and The Other Bridgewater State (2010) -- one of the first things I learned about our town was that it had once housed Albert DeSalvo, better known as the Boston Strangler.

So when I heard that local journalist Tiziana Dearing was going to be discussing a new film about the Boston Strangler, my first thought was to wonder whether the film would feature Bridgewater. 

The 18-minute Radio Boston segment puts the film in context, and I recommend listening to it before watching the film. As Dearing and her guests say, Boston Strangler (on Hulu) is about many things. Most important among these was the expectation that "girl" reporters in the 1960s could not and should not report on crime. A close corollary was that the press should not question the authority of the police, which of course is a big part of what a free press is for.

The film did not disappoint -- it presents a nuanced portrait of the work of the two women who investigated the story and who gave DeSalvo his nickname. Those who -- like us -- are not familiar with the story in detail will be surprised by quite a few aspects of the case.

And yes, it does mention Bridgewater. None of the filming took place in Bridgewater, but part of the story was set here. There is no shortage of old brick government buildings in Boston that could be used for the Bridgewater State Hospital façade as well as the interior scenes with its most notorious inmate.  

Bridgewater Film Fest: The Bridgewater Triangle on The History Channel

Local leaders always seem to get excited when cameras show up in Bridgewater (unless of course it's negative news, in which case no one wants anything to do with them). If a movie or television crew shows up to film in the area we can count on breathless local coverage giving the impression that Bridgewater is the next Hollywood. 

The almost giddy tone of a recent story in the Brockton Enterprise about The History Channel's segment on the Bridgewater Triangle is one example. Nevertheless our interest was piqued so we paid the fee to purchase the streaming episode of Beyond Skinwalker Ranch through Amazon Prime. The show itself was disappointing. We felt like we were watching middle-school kids making a film while they were camping out (except everyone involved was a grown man). While the crew does speak to some locals about the history of the area, we have no idea what their credentials are. No one from the Wampanoag tribe was interviewed about King Philips War or Puckwudgies even though both were discussed in the piece. 

The "evidence" they collect is laughable. For instance they take some footage of a flying glowing ball "It's not a plane! It's not a plane" they exclaimed over and over again. Perhaps it was a weather balloon? We don't know. They made no effort to find out. Bridgewater State University has an aviation department. If I were involved I might have asked someone there what they thought. 

The crew is also astounded that they have three different compasses pointing to three different "norths" in the Hockomock Swamp. Compasses not working properly isn't exactly proof of paranormal activity. In fact, it's pretty common especially in a place with a lot of electromagnetic activity (high electromagnetic activity is not a paranormal phenomenon either). Again, I might have taken advantage of the nearby university and spoken with someone in the geology and geography departments for further explanation.

It seemed the most extreme abuse of "evidence" collection was the fact that several pieces of  their (battery operated) equipment failed at the same time (again, in a place with a lot of electromagnetic activity) so they were unable to collect "data". They determined that this lack of data was in fact data. Holy moly.

This all made me think of the concept of "peer review". As an academic librarian I am very often asked to help someone find a peer-reviewed journal article. What they mean is a scholarly article that has been through a process in which other experts in the same field have determined that the author(s) did credible research with appropriate controls. Of course the term "peer" by itself simply means someone of your same age and/or circumstances. I sometimes tell students, for instance, that the entire University website is "peer reviewed" in the sense that the University vice-presidents all tell each other that they did a great job putting together a site that is simply a PR piece.

Likewise, the guys who made this show were simply clapping each other on the back telling themselves that they must have found something (because that's what they wanted). A healthy bit of skepticism was definitely in order. 

This was perfectly awful. For those interested in the Bridgewater Triangle we recommend the 2013 Bridgewater Triangle documentary