“I don’t care if I bring the whole temple down,” one interviewee ominously declares in the trailer for the upcoming Netflix documentary Scouts Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America. That comment is a reference to a horrifying child sex abuse scandal at the heart of the streamer’s new documentary feature, from director Brian Knappenberger and coming on September 6. “This is an abomination,” the insider adds about what we come to learn are thousands upon thousands of documented claims of abuse.
This latest Netflix documentary looks set to be one of the most shocking and talked about of the year, more so even than recent titles like Waco: American Apocalypse and Take Care of Maya — the latter of which will utterly wreck you and make you never look at the health care industry the same way again.
As for Knappenberger’s forthcoming 94-minute documentary, here’s what Netflix has to say about Scouts Honor:
“Through exclusive interviews with whistleblowers, survivors, and former employees, this investigative documentary exposes how the Boy Scouts of America attempted to cover up one of history’s most horrific child sexual abuse scandals.”
It will probably shock most people to learn, as we’re told in the trailer, that there have reportedly been some 82,000 claims of abuse documented since the Boy Scouts of America program was founded in 1910. As if that wasn’t enough of a bombshell, The New York Times also reported back in 2021 regarding that 82,000 figure that it “far surpasses” the number of claims filed in Catholic church sex abuse cases.
If his past work is any indication, meanwhile, the director behind Scouts Honor is the right filmmaker to tell this story. He also directed the 2021 Netflix documentary series Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror — a five-part snapshot of one of the most defining events of my generation, bringing a fresh perspective to what had already been one of the most-covered and studied tragedies ever to occur on American soil.
