Chadron, Nebraska has a solo traffic light which is the only one in three counties. The nearest mall is two hours away. It couldn’t be much further away from Lincoln and Omaha. Its population of 5600 are the quirky types you’d expect in an isolated prairie town. Dave Janetta’s Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere is a stirring documentary every bit as much about this small town’s challenges as it is about the strange 2006 death of a math professor from the local college.
Based on the recently published memoir by Chadron resident and novelist Poe Ballantine (who also co-produced the film), Love and Terror… outlines the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Steven Haataja, whose body was found in a remote area months after he disappeared. The body was burned and tied to a tree with electrical cords. Although no suspects are presented, the theory he couldn’t possibly have tied himself is a permeating one throughout the film. Along the way we get to know the witty, self-deprecating Ballantine, like Haataja, a relative newcomer to Charron who came to the town with a background of suicidal depression issues.
What may at first come off as a film with barely enough story for a feature, works its way into achieving the capturing of a portrait of a unique town. Its characters, both weird yet somehow grounded, come to find Haataja’s uncertain death simultaneously their unifier and their catalyst for divisiveness.