Guyana: Crime of the Century (1980)

Captivating movie !

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Rene Cardona Jnr's attempt to re-create the, at the time, topical Jim Jones cult that resulted in the mass suicide of almost a thousand followers. Stuart Whitman plays the megalomaniacal cult leader, deviant, zealot and polygamist with an open licence and while he probably looks more like Roy Orbison than Jim Jones, it's not a bad imitation based on what I know of the Jones persona.Bradford Dillman plays Jones' doctor-in-staff who administers (reluctantly) the fatal dose, Gene Barry is the doomed American diplomat trying to disassemble the oppressive community and a host of former Hollywood heavyweights (Cotten, DeCarlo, Ireland) fill out the ranks. Good to see Cardona's preferred local talent Hugo Stiglitz on board along with beauties Jennifer Ashley and Erika Carlsson (the trio reunited from "Tintorera"). While not to trivialise the subject, you know you're watching an exploitation movie when those guys are in the cast.Fatally overlong, the long-awaited climax doesn't prove to be worth the wait (knowing the conclusion doesn't help, but there's no attempt at suspense) and while the cast is appealing, the film doesn't do the subject matter justice. Obviously this is made for a particular audience so if you want to see the more deferential treatment, then the "Guyana Tragedy" (1980) is probably your picture. I'm faithful to the Rene Cardona Jnr factory, and while this is perhaps his least-impressive 'western' work, it still contains some of his trademark excess.

In 1978, A Mexican film crew (Mismovision) struck a deal with Mexico City Broadcasting (MCB): In the years that followed, they could use their characters in any way they saw fit. MCB producer Memo Vasqueze, who was responsible for bringing many great cult leader shows to TV throughout the 70s, decided to do a Jim Jones series, and wanted the story to remain as faithful to the Marvel comic as possible, but MCB's sponsor Bambino Machino wanted to sell more toys, so there was a major story rewrite, and they had to push a giant robot into the story! MCB's producers thought Bambino Machino was crazy! Nonetheless, this was to be the first time in a cult leader series in which a cult leader figure (as opposed to a regular pilot, such as in the Japanese METZENGINGER Z) operated a giant robot!The MCB/Bambino Machino project entitled GUYANA: Crimen del siglo a Mexinization of Jim Jones himself (the project was going to be called GUYANA: Robusteza del Mal), but Bambino Machino got more control than Vasqueze, for whom this show was the last straw. When he left evil cult shows (and worked on soap operas at MCB), it was completely Bambino Machino's show from there on. The next Cult Hero Series, Siempre listo en las tinieblas (1980) and ¡Así es mi tierra! (1981) had MCB in the opening credits! Go figure!Here we have Bambino Machino's GUYANA: Crimen del siglo, which, despite its shortcomings, should supposedly be a treat for fans of that type of thing! I will say that it was better than the short-lived American series starring Powers Booth (which wasn't TOO bad). Before the excellent new GUYANA film starring Stewart Whitman, this is definitely the least historically faithful GUYANA ever portrayed on film! The attitude was right, the poses and stunts were incredible! But the faithfulness ends with portrayal of Cult Leader Jimmy (Jim-Jam) Jones himself. . .The STORY is what bugs me! The Mexinization is much more extreme than the aforementioned Marvel Comic from the same year, and here, Jim-Jam's regular foes are nowhere to be seen. Also, his origins have been changed completely! He's from outer space, he has a racing car (Messiah-Machine GP-12000) and rides a giant ship called the Marveller (hmmmm . . . Where DID they get that name . . . ), which transforms into the giant robot Assuptionizer! OK, now this is TOTALLY out of place for IL' Captain Koolaid, even more absurd than any of Ralph Bakshi's "drug-trip" Hobbit adventures (from the last two seasons of the classic animated series)! But that's not all! Bambino Machino ran out of money to do the FX prior to the post-production, and Assuptionizer was replaced by a goofy-looking bozo-clown named Senior Bungles, as it was rumored that some nasty fanatic stole the robot costume! So its appearance was limited to stock footage of the robot, with new footage of Senior Bungles' balloon animal antics spliced in!But now, let'slook at a few the show's minuses: As, moreover, we are forced to endure more Guyana Cult Tragedy action! In fact, the show is VERY violent! incorporating in certain instances real footage of human brain surgery!I'll be as brief on the plot as I can: In space, Professor Jehovah, leader of the Angelican Army (his cronies include right hand woman Oblate Sisters of the Assumption, a similar two Caucasian women, and dove-like henchmen) are in pursuit of the space craft Marveller, which comes to Earth and crashes on a mountain in Guyana, freeing an old hermit named Padre Sebastián, who was from the planet Spider (which the big Prof. plundered and destroyed long ago). After a race show, motorcycle stuntman Bert Powers (Ricardo Carrión) (who lives with his sister and little brother, and has a fashion model girlfriend, who's unaware that her boss is actually an Oblate Sisters of the Assumption in disguise! Wow, and you thought the Branch Davidians of the infamous Waco Massacre were out there!) is fatally wounded by Oblate Sisters of the Assumption and the dove-henchmen, who attempt to remove his brain but are thwarted by Padre Sebastián, the old hermit, who injects "grape koolaid" into Bert's jugular artery before turning back into a starfish! He also receives a metallic bracelet, which stores his cult leader suit (PLUS!!!), shoots holy fire, and is also a communicator for the Messiah-Machine GP-12000 and Marveller, which he can ride and transform into Assuptionizer, which kills 917 "true believers", as we all know, on that ill-fated day (it hurls its punch bowls at it's prey, as opposed to to merely lacing it with stychnide and leaving it there by the wayside for the followers to imbibe at their leisure)! **SPOILERS** I will say that, ultimately, though incredibly rushed (especially after its slow first half), has its fair share of sick sick scenes, in particular, those depicting the heaps of stagnant dead bodies rotting in the sun, and accompanied by the buzzing of flies on the soundtrack! Anyhow, after the Assuptionizer kills the congregation off, Jim Jones comes face to face with Professor Jehovah, who, after a little scuffle with our cult leader, grows to giant size, pounds his chest like King Kong, and exerts "The Angelican Army is immortal!!!" Jim Jones does the usual Marveller/Assuptionizer thing and kills the evil Professor the same way he killed everyone else, but this time, with a bit of fire & brimstone thrown in between for dramatic effect (supposedly taken from real life transcripts of real-life sermons but echoing here via the employment of some audio trickery and thus difficult to understand) My final take: Bambino Machino's GUYANA: Century of the Crime a fun roller-coaster ride with tons of unnecessary (but not unwelcome) sermonizing, and a must-see for Jesus freaks. I say, don't let the minuses get to you, and just sit back and enjoy the plusses!Not Recommended.

**Possible Spoilers Ahead**This flick opens with a disclaimer that "names have been changed to protect the innocent," then shifts to a scene where a reporter blows his brains all over a bathroom mirror. At that point, something told me this movie would be a real p***er. As the verbose "Reverend Jim Johnson", Stuart Whitman has more dialogue in the first ten minutes than in all his other movies combined. His attorneys are played by Joseph Cotten (who would hit rock bottom in HEAVEN'S GATE the next year) and John Ireland who looks mighty strange in a beard and horn-rimmed glasses. Gene Barry appears as congressman "Leo O'Brien," Yvonne DeCarlo is Johnson's liason with the real world and Robert Doqui and Jennifer Ashley are two of his disciples. Cardona regular Hugo Stiglitz is on hand as a reporter. Bradford Dillman is the resident doctor who mixes one mean Kool-Aid cocktail. This version leads us to believe that Reverend Jim was terminally ill and wanted to take about 900 people with him. Prior to that outrage, his followers punish a deserter by drugging him and leaving him on railroad tracks right before the next train roars through. Three boys steal food and are punished with snakes, water torture and shocks to the genitals. Two teenagers are caught doing the Featherbed Mambo; the cult leader hands the girl over to the biggest stud in "Johnsontown" and orders the boy to have sex with another man and all I can say is, thank God this discipline takes place offscreen. The original film runs 109 minutes that fly right by, if only because you can't believe what you're seeing. Universal cut it down to 90 minutes when they released it Stateside as GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED. One thing I'll say for the Guyana Tragedy: you didn't hear many jokes about it. That's because the punch lines were too long.

I keep getting this movie confused with "Guyana Tragedy", the TV movie based on the Jim Jones incident. But this is a fantastic film, truly bone-chilling and bizarre! I just saw it on TV (on FOX, of all places!) and could not believe how well-made it was. Having heard mostly negative reviews of the film, I am glad to say that they were all wrong. For the most part, "Cult of the Damned" is a lot more accurate than the TV movie and being a theatrical feature, can actually show more of the massacre than a TV movie's restricted budget and audience. Try to find this on TV sometime or even better, search for it on video! It's long out of print, but well worth the time to look around!