If you are of a certain age when you took driving education courses in high school, they likely showed bloody films of auto accidents in class, explicit images of corpses and injured people as they were removed from the wreckage. These films were meant as a shock treatment, hopefully piercing the veil of teenage invincibility and instilling a a little caution behind the wheel. No one really knows if they worked, but if you saw these films in school you remember them.

Hell’s Highway is the story of Highway Safety Films Inc, the people that produced these safety movies, and many other training film you are unlikely to have seen. This documentary is not for the squeamish. It replays several graphic scenes from these movies, scenes of real death, real injury, and real agony. However if you can tolerate these bis, it is a fascinating exploration of the people and their mission. It is a time capsule of how things used to work, and how we used to think. I was never bored and found this movie engrossing.