As miscommunication and temptations abound, a couple’s once-passionate marriage slowly unravels, narrated through humorous dioramas.

Rising executive Tim Wagner works for a boss who hosts a monthly dinner in which the guest who brings the biggest buffoon gets a career-boost. Tim plans on not attending until he meets Barry, a man who builds dioramas using stuffed mice. Barry’s blundering but good intentions send Tim’s life into a downward spiral, threatening a major business deal and possibly scuttling Tim’s engagement to his fiancee.

A series of horrifying murders, the victims, always couples, staged in bizarre collage dioramas with cardboard cutouts and scribbled, childlike messages about the corrupting power of love. The killer’s on the loose, and the FBI is looking for a truck driver. Emery Reed is a long haul trucker disillusioned with the American Dream after an accident left his wife paralyzed and took the life of their son. Newlyweds Jeff and Krissy are having the time of their lives until their car breaks down on a rural road in the middle of nowhere. When the love birds collide with the forlorn truck driver, a wild ride leaves everyone questioning the true value of love and American Romance.

Before forensics, DNA, and CSI we had dollhouses – an unimaginable collection of miniature crime scenes, known as the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Created in the 1930s and 1940s by a crime-fighting grandmother, Frances Glessner Lee created the Nutshells to help homicide detectives hone their investigative skills. These surreal dollhouses reveal a dystopic and disturbing slice of domestic life with doll corpses representing actual murder victims, or perhaps something that just looks like murder. Despite all the advances in forensics, the Nutshells are still used today to train detectives. Documentary film, Of Dolls and Murder, explores the dioramas, the woman who created them, and their relationship to modern day forensics. From the iconic CSI television show to the Body Farm and criminally minded college students, legendary filmmaker and true crime aficionado, John Waters narrates the tiny world of big time murder.

Filmed for over a decade, MAGICAL UNIVERSE is a portrait of Al Carbee, an 88 year old strange and reclusive outsider artist who spends his days alone in a massive house in Maine creating art — mostly featuring Barbie Dolls in elaborate dioramas. The documentary profiles Carbee’s amazing body of work and his relentlessly creative lifestyle. Carbee’s story is explored through the prism of his unlikely friendship with New York filmmaker Jeremy Workman, who unexpectedly becomes Carbee’s closest friend and only link to the outside world. Far beyond just a portrait of an eccentric, MAGICAL UNIVERSE is about wonder, friendship, and the transcendent power of creativity. Its story culminates with Al Carbee’s greatest triumph as an artist and a man.