By Stan B.
Based on a True Story (Blog)
Unseen* is simply made, but wide in scope; it is not a documentary about a serial killer. At this point, I find most anything to do with serial killers rather played and gratuitous in just about every possible manner imaginable. But Laura Paglin goes far beyond the usual serial killer conventions and priorities. This killer is but another nameless actor in a world already seething with anonymous hurt and pain. Welcome to Mt. Pleasant, a once prospering, diverse community now long devoid of any meaningful economic opportunity, social mobility or outright hope. It's also not unlike any other of the countless and interchangeable inner cities spread far and wide throughout this country, left to drown in it's duly planned misery and seclusion.
Drugs, liquor stores and crack addicts litter the landscape like so many fallen, forgotten leaves from last year's Fall. So when the women from these streets start disappearing, no one in particular notices, no one particularly cares. Paglin breathes life into these murdered, unseen and disappeared souls who were once real people with real lives, until crack rolled in and eviscerated whatever dreams can be salvaged in such a place- many had young children.
She lays clear how communities are left to rot and decay in isolation, the survivors expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps- when the boots and the straps have both long departed. What's left is a state of slow, unmonitored death- the kind of environment where police don't care, and a serial killer needn't be clever...