Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)

Using archival photos, newspaper stories, and hospital records to recreate life in 1890s Black River Falls, Wisconsin-- a Protestant community of merchants, farmers, most of them recent German and Scandinavian immigrants. The multiple cases of murder, madness and mayhem make today's tabloid headlines seem tame by comparison. (Having Mendota Asylum for the Insane nearby certainly helps.) The area is plagued by ghost-sightings, bizarre suicides, teenage outlaws--and a cocaine-crazed school mistress with a compulsion to smash windows. 'Little House on the Prairie' will never look the same.