Sundance Review: Terrifying, Unsettling And Insightful Documentary 'Welcome To Leith'

Tiny Leith, North Dakota looks as if it would make a fine setting for a horror film. Grossly underpopulated and generously dotted with crumbling abandoned buildings, there are plenty of places to hide in the town with no one ever being the wiser. But that’s not what happens in Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker’s terrifying and insightful “Welcome to Leith.”

The Kickstarter-funded documentary chronicles an unsettling and hopefully brief chapter in Leith's history, when for a few months in 2012 and 2013 white supremacist Craig Cobb made it his goal to take over the entire town and turn it into a haven for his ideological kin. With a population of only twenty-four people (including kids), his idea, while scary and weird and horrible, was achievable, and that possibility is what makes “Welcome to Leith” sharply upsetting.

In late 2012, Cobb, who is considered “one of the top ten white supremacists in the United States” (you may wonder who compiles such...