Movie Review: Devil's Knot

This biographical crime film is based on the novel Devil’s knot by Mara Leveritt. It showcases the true story of the three boys collectively known as The West Memphis Three, who were falsely convicted for the murder of three eight year old boys.

In 1993, in the working class community of West Memphis, Arkansas, three 8 year old children went missing from the neighborhood. Their dead bodies are found in a pond. The communinity and the police department are convinced that the murders were a work of satanic cult. Three teenagers Damien Echoels, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr were arrested after Miskelley’s exactly four hours of confession. The confession which Miskelley told them was probably false as he is shown telling his dad ‘I tried to make them happy’.

My take on this movie (more precisely the murder case) is that, there are certain things that happen unknowingly due to the supposed bad habits you and the society have. There was no solid evidence from which the police could deduce that the three were guilty but due to the superstitious belief that the murders were a work of a satanic cult, Damien Echoels and Jason Baldwin are arrested. 

They both passed their time listening to hard metal music and a religious leader believed that hard metal music is very much connected to Satanism. Moreover some witnesses revealed that Damien once threatened to kill an 8 year old boy. Another witness also revealed that Damien worshipped satan. 

Vicky hutcheson, who is an important person in the case, claimed that she saw drunken Damien openly bragging to have killed the three boys. So you can say that to an extent Damien was played too brutally by his karma. Police and Society’s superstition, Damien’s satanic nature and Jessie Misskelley Jr’s immature confessions were not the only factors responsible for their trial, there was one more angle arced against the three, the story submitted by the victim’s playmate and Vicky’s son Aaron. 

Aaron told the police that he was an eyewitness of the incident and that Jessie Miskelley made him drink a bucket of the victim’s blood and killed the children in front of him after which Miskelley confessed to have seen Echoels striking the knife into the children. 

In the end of the film, closing credits reveal that the blood samples matched the DNA of Steve Branch’s (one of the three eight year old victims) step dad, Terry although it was never submitted as evidence. Vicky Hutcheson had retracted her statement stating it as fabricated and to have said it because of policemen forcing her to do so. Aaron, their playmate who claimed to have been an eyewitness of the murders today has no idea what had really happened.

The film shows how much misguided the legal system is. Policemen arresting people only on the basis of false witness statements and superstitions and not even single solid or physical evidence. They believed what they wanted to believe.

The movie described the chaos too well, therefore it is watchable. The happenings during the trial had been described appropriately. Reese Witherspoon plays an important role as Pamela Hobbs, mother of Stevie Branch who tries to deal with her remorse for her lost son. But the best actor I would say was James Hamrick, he plays the role of Damien Echols very realistically, he was absolutely natural and dissolved into the character. Others were all great in their roles. After you watch this movie, you will then realize why the movie is called ‘Devil’s knot’.

Out of a scale of 1 to 5, the film deserves a 3.5 definitely.

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