Based on Michael Lesy’s 1973 book of the same name, WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP is a strikingly original non-fiction film that tells the strange story of one cursed American community. In the late 1890s, the small rural town of Black River Falls, Wisconsin, suffered an incredibly bizarre crisis. Economically depressed and battling a diphtheria epidemic, in addition to relentlessly bleak weather conditions, the residents of Black River Falls began to collectively lose their minds. Through recreations, old photographs, and newspaper clippings culled from the era (read by Ian Holm), James Marsh's film shows just how bizarre a time in history this actually was.