American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders

I watched this blind, in the mood for something suspicious and thrilling to ring in autumn...

ACTOM fit the bill pretty well! The production of this documentary really keeps you hanging off everyone's last word, trying to piece together what could possibly have happened. The characters in this scheme are bizarre, interesting people, and the rabbit hole just keeps going deeper...

Until it doesn't. The twist at the end really felt like "Wait, I watched all of that for this?!" By no means do I mean the "verdict" is far-fetched or unbelievable, but the final episode and wrap-up to this series was such a belly-flop of nothing compared to all the build-up the previous episodes had.

Not a bad watch, but unsatisfying ending in my opinion.

Committed by the second episode, was slightly irked it never really concluded after 4 hours investment.

That's all I have to say really, now filling up characters to suit IMDB. Lead along on the premise that something exciting would happen; it never did. Totally appreciate that's perhaps part of the appeal for some people - for me it was just quite frustrating after investing so much time.

Quite hard to follow at times with lots of names etc. Sounds like in the end all the characters were insane, almost rendering the whole exercise useless. I just felt disappointed at the end after investing so much time.

This is the kind of documentaries that stand out from the Netflix average trendy true crime docuseries and makes our subscription worthwhile. It's full of historical informations, not over dramatized and well narrated. This is a great tribute to Danny Caselaro's work. So to the main investigator of this doc Christian Hansen : Bravo ! It seems that this investigation took years of your life but it was worth it (+ you're still alive). Your doc helps clear some of the fog of history around the shitshow that was the 70's and 80's, it's so refreshing and entertaining !

Kudos to the Netflix producers that trusted you and financed this doc, we want more docs like this ! You tapped into a vein of gold right there, keep going !

Ignore the suspicously odd number of super low reviews. This documentary is flawed, but well worth a watch. Addressing the flaws first: it's a bit plodding at times and there are parts that could have been clearer. It also seems to throw the main information under the bus to some degree (perhaps pulling back to lessen the possiblity of blowback for making it). Is it biased? Probably (it's on Netflix, after all). Does it tell the whole story? Nope.

It is, however, very much still worth a watch. It offers some fresh examples of how the world actually works: evidence that's buried by the police, murderous criminals who do little/no time (because they also work for powerful people), intelligence operatives posing as humanitarians, "whistleblowers" who dole out disinformation and try to determine what you actually know, intersection of intelligence organizations and organized crime, etc.

If you aren't already somewhat familiar with the world of covert operations like the CIA's role in the crack cocaine epidemic you might assume all of what's in the documentary is made up, but the world is a strange place.

After watching this I am still not sure.. Mostly about.. well.. anything. This is too big of a story. So big it makes you wonder if it is even possible but at the same time it somehow feels very possible and almost common. A conspiracy so wild and wide it is almost infinite. But what makes it different is the point of view. In this documentary you are part of the crew trying to decipher it all as well as a witness of an obsession that can possess you if you get to deep. If there is a mystery so profound including so many parts and questions it might never stop and it might just take you down with it. For more reasons.