Guyana: Cult of the Damned

This is a review of the 115 minute directors cut not the 90 minute American cut.

This is a (supposedly) accurate version of the Jonestown tragedy of 1978 where Jim Jones got his followers all to drink Kool Aid spiked with cyanide and commit a mass suicide. This movie changed the names--JIm Jones is now Jim Johnson--who starts his own congregation in the US. He is deeply distrustful of the US and the CIA in particular and moves everybody to Guyana to start a utopian paradise. Unfortunately he treats his followers like slaves and subjects them to mental and physical torture and prevents them from leaving. The US government hears of this and goes to investigate. It all ends tragically.

Despite its reputation for being graphic and gory this film is really tame. How this got an R rating is beyond me--it's PG-13 all the way. No blood, gore or nudity. That doesn't make it a great movie though. Stuart Whitman plays Johnson and he's pretty good. They also got some respected actors--Gene Barry, John Ireland, Joseph Cotten, Yvonne De Carlo, Bradford Dillman--in major roles and they're all pretty good. It's kind of slow and the DVD transfer is crappy with bad sound and faded color. Still it is respectful and scary story of a tragedy that should never have happened.