10 Film Documentaries That Accidentally Uncovered Major Scoops

2. Capturing The Friedmans - Clown Show Becomes Horror Show

Capturing The Friedmans (2003)
HBO

Capturing The Friedmans is a film that director Andrew Jarecki never intended to make. In the early 2000s, his focus was on a short film titled Just A Clown, which was planned as a "day in the life" of New York-based children's party entertainers.

However, while making this short (which he did eventually finish), Jarecki's research led him to discover a shocking truth - namely, the dark story behind one of his subjects, David Friedman, whose family has a deeply disturbing history.

During the production process, Jarecki learned that David's brother (Jesse) and father (Arnold) had previously pleaded guilty to child sex abuse, which drove the filmmaker to uncover as much about the story as he could. His pursuit of the truth then evolved into the feature-length documentary Capturing The Friedmans, which tracks the Friedman case from beginning to end - from court cases, to prison, to Arnold's death in 1995, and Jesse's release six years later.

Needless to say, it's a million miles away from that initial, much breezier documentary about birthday party clowns.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer and Presenter, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund and Eli Roth to Kevin Smith and the Russo Brothers, to Kevin Conroy and Frank Miller, to Bret Hart and Sting, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, and Brian Flynn, to many, many more. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is a long-standing season ticket holder and an FSA Award-winner for his time co-hosting the Fearless in Devotion podcast.