Split Image: Stearns’ Debut a Dark Hearted Cult Comedy
The insidious recruitment techniques of religious cults used to be a veritable genre staple, beginning, perhaps, with the fascination surrounding the highly publicized Manson Family murders in the late 1960s. The media sensation resulted in a culturally acknowledged terror reflected in the cinema for decades to come, and one may recall a slew of 1980s titles that cashed in on these cultural fears, with titles like Ticket to Heaven (1981) and Bad Dreams (1988) now languishing in obscurity, despite a variety of notable historical markers, from the Jim Jones’ led mass suicide in 1978 Jonestown, Guyana, to the Branch Davidian and Heaven’s Gate episodes of the 1990s. It appears there may be a minor resurgence in the topic, with Ti West’s recent The Sacrament (2013) recreating the spirit of Jim Jones. Now, Faults, the directorial debut of Riley Stearns, which premiered at...
The insidious recruitment techniques of religious cults used to be a veritable genre staple, beginning, perhaps, with the fascination surrounding the highly publicized Manson Family murders in the late 1960s. The media sensation resulted in a culturally acknowledged terror reflected in the cinema for decades to come, and one may recall a slew of 1980s titles that cashed in on these cultural fears, with titles like Ticket to Heaven (1981) and Bad Dreams (1988) now languishing in obscurity, despite a variety of notable historical markers, from the Jim Jones’ led mass suicide in 1978 Jonestown, Guyana, to the Branch Davidian and Heaven’s Gate episodes of the 1990s. It appears there may be a minor resurgence in the topic, with Ti West’s recent The Sacrament (2013) recreating the spirit of Jim Jones. Now, Faults, the directorial debut of Riley Stearns, which premiered at...
- 3/4/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Believe us when we tell you we're exploring some of the best cults and quasi-religious groups on film. Join us ...
This week's Clip joint is by David Biddle.
Think you can do better? Email your idea for a future Clip joint to adam.boult@guardian.co.uk
Next month sees the release of Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, a film about a drifter who founds a cult with absolutely no relation to any litigious, real-life organisation whatsoever.
Cults and other shadowy quasi-religious organisations are common in pop culture, generally as antagonists, largely because the past few decades have seen some genuinely terrifying real-life examples. Here are some of my cinematic favourites.
1) The Wicker Man
This 1973 horror film has the distinction of being not only about a cult but also a cult film. Led by Christopher Lee's charismatic Lord Summerisle, a group of pagan islanders with a fondness for...
This week's Clip joint is by David Biddle.
Think you can do better? Email your idea for a future Clip joint to adam.boult@guardian.co.uk
Next month sees the release of Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, a film about a drifter who founds a cult with absolutely no relation to any litigious, real-life organisation whatsoever.
Cults and other shadowy quasi-religious organisations are common in pop culture, generally as antagonists, largely because the past few decades have seen some genuinely terrifying real-life examples. Here are some of my cinematic favourites.
1) The Wicker Man
This 1973 horror film has the distinction of being not only about a cult but also a cult film. Led by Christopher Lee's charismatic Lord Summerisle, a group of pagan islanders with a fondness for...
- 10/16/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
by Nick Schager
What's new is always old, and in this recurring column, I'll be taking a look at the classic genre movies that have influenced today's new releases. In honor of Sean Durkin's Cannes and New York Film Festival-heralded cult-life drama, Martha Marcy May Marlene, this week it's Ralph L. Thomas' 1981 drama Ticket to Heaven.
Indoctrination, entanglement, and escape prove the three steps of religious cult experience addressed by Ticket to Heaven, Ralph L. Thomas' 1981 Canadian indie about a man recruited into a bonkers spiritual outfit. Adapted from Josh Freed's novel Moonwebs, Thomas' film opens with a credit sequence in which the camera tracks a white van crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and traversing San Francisco's streets, gradually increasing proximity until it enters the vehicle, where a group of young people are chanting and cheering for "Father." That celebration is interrupted when David (Nick Mancuso...
What's new is always old, and in this recurring column, I'll be taking a look at the classic genre movies that have influenced today's new releases. In honor of Sean Durkin's Cannes and New York Film Festival-heralded cult-life drama, Martha Marcy May Marlene, this week it's Ralph L. Thomas' 1981 drama Ticket to Heaven.
Indoctrination, entanglement, and escape prove the three steps of religious cult experience addressed by Ticket to Heaven, Ralph L. Thomas' 1981 Canadian indie about a man recruited into a bonkers spiritual outfit. Adapted from Josh Freed's novel Moonwebs, Thomas' film opens with a credit sequence in which the camera tracks a white van crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and traversing San Francisco's streets, gradually increasing proximity until it enters the vehicle, where a group of young people are chanting and cheering for "Father." That celebration is interrupted when David (Nick Mancuso...
- 10/21/2011
- GreenCine Daily
I remember watching the 1981 film "Ticket To Heaven" when I was a kid, starting to ask questions about faith and belief and dogma, and the notion of cults and deprogramming freaked me out. I also remember when the Jonestown suicides happened, and looking at the photos of all those bodies, each of them a believer, and being struck by the profound sorrow of investing your full identity into something that you believe will free or elevate your soul, only to end up a dead, dirty sack of meat, betrayed and left to rot in some third-world hellhole. This weekend, another fringe...
- 5/20/2011
- Hitfix
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