The Sacrament (2014)

That was an excellent one.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I'm watching 'The Sacrament' on Netflix and finding myself increasingly infuriated with its fictional account of Jonestown. After Vietnam a lot of Americans were feeling hurt, angry, powerless, and disillusioned with their government. The "free love" of the 60's was a distant memory, making way for the sheer capitalistic hedonism of the 80's. Isolationism was so appealing, and a man promising all the answers according to God's will was spectacularly enticing to people with a need to belong and be loved, especially with the surge in secularism as evidenced by the Time cover in 1966. A return to a simple life. Who doesn't want that?In the FBI's notorious death tape, recovered from the compound after the fact, the phrase, "revolutionary suicide" comes up a lot. It was a profound, deeply-held paranoia by most of the members of Jonestown that the entire world was out to stop them. This belief helped them feel special, necessitated their utter isolation, and perpetuated their feeling of almost warlike disdain for the outside world, as well as cementing their need for Jim Jones. The Jones philosophy was so deeply held that most of the members willingly drank Flavor-Aid laced with Valium, chloral hydrate, and cyanide to protest, according to Jones, "the conditions of an inhumane world".For the children too young to drink from a cup, they used turkey basters.Also the only Congressman to die in the line of duty: Leo Ryan.Nine hundred and nine people died... but whatever. This movie just wanted the frosting, eg. crazy people poisoning themselves in the middle of nowhere because some guy in aviator sunglasses said to. There was no regard to HOW someone can end up in such a position, which to me is far more horrifying.Leatherface, Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter all had some passing resemblance to Ed Gein, but I still find Gein to be, in his own way, more terrifying. So too do I think the facts of Jonestown will trump any half- cocked attempt at fictionalization.The facts of the story are enough... they really are. The only way it could have been more hokey is if it was presented by Vampira. Also, if a movie is going for the off-the-cuff, POV angle, the illusion is shot to hell when you introduce a constant and inexplicable, painfully hackneyed soundtrack. See: 'Cloverfield' for the way it should be done.Having vented my spleen, off to bed.I'm washing the taste of this movie out of my mouth by rereading, 'Seductive Poison'.

This thrilling drama will remind you of the Jim Jones Massacre at Jonestown in the mid 1970s. Using "found footage" genre. Patrick(Kentucker Audley) works for a company proud of covering bizarre newsworthy subjects. He receives an invitation from his sister Caroline(Amy Siemetz)to visit her at a compound called Eden Parish for exiled Christians. This cult-like community is ran by a man simply called Father(Gene Jones), who is very paranoid when it comes to the so-called outside world. Patrick and two of his friends Jake(Joe Swanberg) and Sam(AJ Bowen), photographer and journalist, travel to Eden Parish. Patrick realizes quickly that his sister is acting differently and even more so, Father is obviously wanting to cover something up. A few "citizens" are secretly wanting to leave when the journalists do. Father is very content in not letting a living sole leave his man-made Utopian community.Be advised of disturbing violence, graphic and bloody images and situations earning an R rating. Cast members include: Shirley Jones Byrd, Derek Roberts, Kate Forbes, Dale Neal and Donna Biscoe.

Decent drama about a suicide cult, but it ain't a horror.The set-up is quick, and we spend the first act discovering the cult and having all our logical questions answered. The Father is very well played - paternal, evasive, menacing.Not totally convinced by the switch to "uh oh, something's up". This is the problem - there was no external force, so we had to rely on a bible quoting psychopath. Honestly I have a lot of sympathy with his views. In 2015 the threat posed by the neoliberal state and the vicious inequality it promotes should be high on the film-maker's agenda. Finally the helicopter sequence isn't convincing either.In the end there's no exploration of the suicidal urge or the mentality of the religious - this guy was just bad and his collaborators were bad too. Woteva. So overall it's well played and paced, but not satisfying or eye opening.

I got this from my local library as I do most of the films I watch so as not to blow 15 bucks at a theater for junk like this.As others have commented, this is s rip-off of the Jonestown story, in which actor Powers Booth was so good as Jim Jones. There are also documentaries on this story that are much better than this movie as well. I got the feeling the writer thought he could slip this one past a "new generation." I vividly recall the Time Magazine cover of the over 900 bodies lying dead in that remote region of Guyana and the moment the film reached the settlement, I knew it was a re-telling of Jonestown. Even the terminology and landscape used, eg. the pavilion, the layout of the settlement etc. are Jonestown to a tee.The players, who are supposed to be reporters, are annoying from the start. To me they epitomize the smart-ass, know-it-all and feel they have a right to know-it-all blogger-types so prevalent in today's media; the ones that believe they are too smart to believe in God, for example and seem dumbfounded by anyone who doesn't share their "enlightened" view.It was interesting to see how close they might come to the actual story but like the Titanic where the main character gets chance after chance to get on a life boat but doesn't or better yet, like the kids at a slasher summer camp flick, by the end you just hope they all die for their stupidity. And like those slasher flicks, inexplicably, the main character survives. Which brings me to spoiler number 1. The Sam character was seen being macheted in the pavilion but miraculously re-appears with the Father later with blood on his shirt but apparently fit enough to run for his life at the end. How? Was he just nicked or what? And how the helicopter pilot survived his gunshot wounds to be able to lie around for hours and then still fly the chopper out (and was conveniently waiting with the rotors spinning) is beyond me.I guess it never occurred to any of the three "heroes" to just get the hell out of there and send back help when they had opportunity after opportunity.The "Father" character was well-played too and like the original on which he is based, I was always struck by how he told everyone else to take the potion but didn't himself. That would have been enough to send me running, which, by the way,a few did in real life; there were a handful of survivors.I could go on but it would basically be a narrative on the Jonestown Story so I'll let you find that out for yourself. But as a last word, this film is no good.