In the Dark of the Valley is an extraordinarily powerful and moving film that follows the story of Melissa Bumstead, a mother whose search for answers about her young daughter's cancer leads her to the contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL),a former nuclear and rocket engine testing site near Los Angeles. After meeting numerous other families impacted by pediatric cancer who live near SSFL, Melissa enters into a fraught world of polluter and government lies, negligence, and collusion, but summons the courage to organize her community to join the decades-long fight for the site to be fully cleaned up. I have been part of that fight for 15 years and was astonished by the way the film captures the heart of one of the longest and most intensely fought battles to clean up a contaminated site in the US.

Re other reviews, please know that sound issues were a one-time error on the network's part that have been corrected and are not present in any online format. The film won Best Documentary at the Phoenix Film Festival, Catalina Film Festival, and Ojai Film Festival, where it also won the People's Choice award, the first time in the festival's history that a film has won both awards. It also won Best Documentary, Best Directing, and Best Editing at the Angeles Documentaries.

My God, I'm nearly in tears here!

I have this taped on my DVR from an earlier showing this week and tried five times (yes, that's 5 times!) this evening to view the documentary in its entirety.

Sadly, I just cannot!

Why?

Background music !

I really dunno WHAT JACKASS or HOW MANY involved in the release of this piece - have viewed this almost 2hr program AND NOT BEEN annoyed as hell in being UNABLE TO HEAR commentary die to the background noise incorporated into every damn segment!

SOOOO FRUSTRATING!

Can't increase the volume hopingbto hear whatever the words are being said, bcuz the friigin stupid ass noise going on obfuscate EVERYTHING !

If you cannot tell here?

Lemme be clear and direct: viewing the program has actually made me mad! And, I should add, I'm NOT ONE prone to such a foolish state of being. Yeah! True story

Hoping that SOMEBODY/ANYBODY having ANY capability if getting this body of work RE-EDITED to either significantly LOWER THE VOLUME OF WHATEVER BACKGROUND NOISE that has been incorporated into the program .... or .... eliminating it completely .... that they'll do it.

Bcuz?

I'm confident the last 20minute segment probably contains information or details of the current status of the situation covered in the documentary.

However?

Apart from googling & reading about it, THIS VIEWER will never know bcuz I CANNOT EVEN BEAR TO TOLERATE MY BRAIN TRYING YO DECIPHER THE INFORMATION PRESENTED &/OR COMMENTERS' WORDS - NOT APART FROM THE ABSURDLY LOUD & INTEREFERING SOUND OF WHIRRING & OTHER NOISES THAT SOME IDIOT chose to pipe into the film.

For the Love of God already! The sound? ENUF!

When the average duck attends. Conference of any kind, when keynote speakers actually are SPEAKING , would it NOT be disrespectful &/or found 2B inappropriate to have LOUD ASS MUSIC OR RANDOM ANNOYING SOUNDS PUPED IN THRU THE SPEAKERS? OF COURSE IT WOULD!

IN FACT, IS NOT THE UNDERSTANDING OF "QUIET" WHEN A SPEAKER SPEAKS NOT the prevailing appropriate philosophy?

Well?

Then WHAT THE HELL IS THE DIFFERENCE when watching the SAME BEHAVIORS on a TV?

Answer?

THERE IS NO DAMN DIFFERENCE!

Anybody acting within a role where programs are developed for filming and viewing?

Kill the damn sounds apart from the volume of anybody speaking ! Period!

Pfffft Common sense just I NOT common anymore!

I'm BAFFLED at NOT seeing this mentioned by nobody buy myself thus far.

This would have been a powerful documentary if only fully watchable, since a good portion of the interviews and presentations are muffled and barely audible, thanks to a hugely irritating loud music which drowned the most important parts.

Over 60 years after the Rocketdyne nuclear leak, a large portion of the NW San Fernando Valley area, about 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles, remains radioactive. The massive 2018 Woolsey fire only further contaminated the grounds, and spread out nuclear compounds and harmful chemicals. The clusters of rare cancers have been documented - in October 2006, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Advisory Panel, made up of independent scientists and researchers from around the United States, concluded that based on available data and computer models, contamination at the facility resulted in an estimated 260 cancer related deaths.

The site's owner, the Boeing company, as well as NASA and several of the state's and federal regulatory agencies keep avoiding the responsibility, and are proposing only a partial cleanup which would leave about 84% of the ground contamination still present.