2. Grizzly Man
Everything about Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man is spine-chilling, from its deeply disturbed male subject of Timothy Treadwell, to his ultimate grizzly outcome. Animated, childlike, and just a little off-centre, Timothy Treadwell is one of the most intriguing characters you're ever likely to see in a documentary. Here is a man who genuinely believed that bears were his friends, and that he alone was responsible for saving them from the monstrous instincts of humanity. Every summer for thirteen years, Treadwell lived among these ferocious creatures, only to be eventually torn apart by one of the very bears that he loved so much in 2003. By taking Treadwell's own footage of his time spent among nature and interspersing it with his own, Herzog creates a kind of meta-documentary that takes the viewer deep inside the world of a troubled individual who regarded himself as intimately connected to grizzly bears and as an opponent of human society. Treadwell films himself feeding, petting, and even swimming with these wild animals, allowing for an unbearable (no pun intended) tension that pulsates throughout the film. Treadwell's sickening fate was caught on camera, but with the lens still covered so that only audio was captured. This leaves more to the imagination, which Herzog accentuates by purposely excluding the footage, and instead showing the viewer his own personal reaction to it. The image of his ghostly face and trembling demeanor as he listens to the recording through a set of headphones is enough to make your blood run cold. "You must never listen to this" Herzog tells Tim's friend. "Destroy it". Shudder.