When it comes to parenthood, of all the things that one can prepare the least for, it’s the loss of a child. Doesn’t matter if it’s expected or unforeseen, little can truly prepare you for the unnatural feeling of saying goodbye to the life you helped nurture into existence. One may find themselves thinking about all the things they, as a parent, will miss when they pass on, but never what the days will be like when the daily chaos of child-rearing suddenly ends, of the gaping hole left in their wake as all the probable futures collapse at once. This is the reality for so many parents whose children were taken by illness, by ineptitude, by cruelty, and, somehow worse, indifference driven by profit margin. Co-writer/director Daniel E. Catullo III explores the darker side of Greek Life in the United States with 4000 Days, a documentary following the 4000-day journey to impose greater guidelines and actual consequence on higher education schools who have allowed hazing rituals to take the lives of students since their inception. At times harrowing and profoundly disconcerting, there’s also a sense of hope that, through the actions of a few brokenhearted parents, fewer children will stop coming home. 4000 Days is having its world premiere in the Spotlight section of Tribeca Film Festival 2026.
L-R: Linda Oakes and Eric Oakes in the documentary, 4000 DAYS, a 10 Lives Studios release. Photo Courtesy of 10 Lives Studios.
Through a mixture of talking head interviews, captured footage, and archival footage (personal and legal), Catullo III introduces us to the respective families of students Gary DeVercelly Jr., Adam Oakes, and Nolan Burch from three different U.S. higher ed schools who worked diligently to pass legislation that might prevent other students from dying through Greek Life events. The documentary primarily follows the DeVercelly family as the ones who began the process in 2007 with the documentary catching up with them more than 1600 days later and staying with them until the Stop Campus Hazing Act was passed in 2024. Though there are many families involved, by opting to focus on three, the audience is given just enough information to understand the gravity of the need for greater oversight without becoming so overwrought as to be unable to process the message.
Smartly, Catullo III doesn’t try to take us through all 4000 days, opting to begin with the story of Gary DeVercelly Jr. and using the DeVercelly family as the way into the film. We get their story, we see Julie DeVercelly trying to make contact with government representatives in support of the REACH Act (which later becomes the Stop Campus Hazing Act, a choice explained in the film), and, from here, the door is opened to the other two families: the Oakes and Burches. Catullo III had previously worked with both of these families in 2019’s Breathe Nolan, Breathe and 2023’s Death of a Pledge: The Adam Oakes Story, which does explain the amount of trust they give to the filmmaker, but also adds an extra element as to why the DeVercellys are placed in the forefront. The DeVercellys are both the newest family to work with Catullo III and the drivers of the legislation. It also explains how Catullo III is able to gain access to the interviewees and evidence that are placed before us through the course of the film; he’s been working on the systemic issues within Greek Life for several years already. It also explains why these families allow Catullo III into places and moments that might seem gratuitous or emotionally manipulative (such as Eric Oakes visiting the place where his son died or the sequence with the Virginia Commonwealth University President that comes off as protecting VCU and not the interests of the Oakes family). Catullo III walks a thin line between using the facts as they exist and tapping into the honest rage that all those who see the deaths of these three young men, and all the others who have been harmed by Greek Life, as something which could’ve been avoided.
L-R: Kim Burch and TJ Burch in the documentary, 4000 DAYS, a 10 Lives Studios release. Photo Courtesy of 10 Lives Studios.
A film like 4000 Days is a difficult sit for a number of reasons, regardless of your status of parenthood. Going to a college or university should be, among many things, safe; however, through following the trail of evidence, through investigations brought about by local law enforcement (as well as the odd instances where not), one starts to realize that schools aren’t just places of higher learning, they are businesses. In the cases of schools with Greek Life, 4000 Days lays out a argument wherein schools might have a deal to use these institutions to draw potential students in, yet possess no responsibility should young adults do young adult things (underage drinking, destruction of property, less-than-thought-out choices). Even worse, 4000 Days implies that the oversight committees who should apply punitive responses to any organization that causes harm to another person (ranging from drugging someone to murder), often seek to protect the Greek organization and minimize responsibility rather than seek actual change — which is why the tragedies keep happening. Going further, 4000 Days presents evidence that implies the insurance plans Greek organizations hold are purchased through companies which are, themselves, directly connected to the national organization that runs Greek Life in the U.S., the insurance companies profiting off the very behaviors that are getting people hurt or killed. If even a small piece of this is true, and there’s quite of bit of evidence to suggest it, then there’s almost no chance that any real change can occur without government involvement because these companies are making too much money to see any loss of life as anything but the cost of doing business. Such abdication of responsibility, by not making changes or ensuring that individuals who are responsible for injury immediately …, by the heads of the organizations makes them as culpable as the perpetrators of each incident.
If there’s a primary gripe to be had about the film, it’s the use of artificial intelligence (A.I.), even if Catullo III is upfront about it during the opening text of the film. By itself, using A.I. isn’t a condemnable offense. Here, with the permission from the respective families, two photos are altered with A.I. to make them movie. In a film driven by the notion that the victims are people — fully-realized individuals with hopes and dreams who were reduced by fraternity chapters into plot points on a cost-benefit graph — to have a mere two photos given motion crosses a line into morbidity that even security footage showing what happened to one young man doesn’t. Based on the end credits, which show various images of the three central families, there were plenty of ways in which a video could’ve been provided to accomplish the same task as the moving images without coming off as contrived, manufactured, or emotionally manipulative. It’s one thing to use A.I. as a tool to smooth images or make adjustments, it’s another to breathe life into something that was never meant to move thereby creating an effect which falsely brings the dead back when materials showing them *in life* would honor them better. Given that there is use of animation in the film to depict at least two experiences of the families, one of them being more aggressive than the other, there’s clearly an international approach to using mixed-media with the documentary that the use of A.I. just stands out in an unpleasant way.
L-R: Julie DeVercelly and Gary DeVercelly in 4000 DAYS, a 10 Lives Studios release. Photo Courtesy of 10 Lives Studios.
To paraphrase a classic Amblin Entertainment line, “Greek Life will find a way.” In my own experience at the University of North Carolina at Asheville where there were no Greek houses on or off campus, members found ways to cultivate their own spaces, often by requesting to live in the same dorms (much as the athletes did). There were still parties and get-togethers, though, having not attended them, I can’t speak to the activities or their respective reputations. The point, though, is that even when interviewees talk about the loss of revenue that could come from punishing members using actions such as closing a chapter which would result in an empty house, one doesn’t exactly feel for the organization. But that’s the point. Greek Life will continue because it provides the perspective of joining an established group, one which may be able to offer safety and security in a new place (school) while creating connections for one’s future. It will persist regardless of real estate. It’s no coincidence that Catullo III includes a large number of profiles of elected officials (current and past) who are members of Greek Life in the opening because they are the decision-makers of today who could require change and yet don’t. Instead, it took 4000 days to make something happen, powered by grief and loss that was entirely avoidable. Greek Life will persevere as it always has, but the lives that it touches may not and that’s why this story matters. 4000 Days isn’t about ending Greek Life, it’s about ensuring that these three deaths and those represented by the families co-sponsoring the Stop Campus Hazing Act can have a legacy of positivity in the wake of someone else preserving a bottom line.
Screening during Tribeca Film Festival 2026.
For more information, head either to the official 4000 Days Tribeca Film Festival webpage or theatrical website.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
Share this:
Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
Leave a Reply