Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults

Heavens Gate has been a subject i've always been extremely interested in. I've even written school papers on them. That being said, there are major misconceptions about this "cult", and this documentary series is one of the best things to watch to get information about Heavens Gate that doesn't come off too one-sided or misconstrued. So little is known about this cult, its origin, its teachings, it's difficult and confusing innards, and it's oddballed participants and leaders, but this documentary series does a really good job explaining all of its extremely interesting inner workings, how the cult changes over time, and how it ultimately ended. Heavens Gate is a really sad, mysterious, odd and even charming story as a whole, and this series really bundles it up nicely.

Definitely recommend this to anybody who's interested in cults, religion, or even aliens / ufos.

One of many "mini-series" that makes one ask: "uh, why is this padded, stretched, and larded with repetition to get to four episodes?!" I found this added little to what I learned about this group from reading major newspapers at the time. It relied too much on interviews with people who say banal or predictable things; far too much time is taken by uninteresting, shaky home video shot by the group in the 90s. If you know little about this group going in, the story may have a macabre fascination, but otherwise this documentary will likely register as a missed opportunity to better explain, with more wit and insight, the original motives for and influences on the group, apart from the psychology of the ex-music teacher at its center. Why did this cult emerge in the early 70s ( a low point for Hollywood and TV sci-fi) and extinguish itself in the mid 90s? The sentimental, indicative music and clunky editing adds to its tedium and the sense the film-makers are masking a lack of analysis. This film would have been better if the more historical approach of the first episode were extended, smartly edited, and left at 120 minutes (ep. one is by far the best of the four--as it reflects, yet still doesn't detail, that the group was analyzed and widely reported on in the mid 1970s, including a cover feature in Psychology Today: what did that author argue? Despite having the author on camera, this film doesn't specify).

While they have many sources to interview, they fail to illuminate any of the interesting parts in the story of heavens gate. Nothing about day to day cult life, nothing about the teachings beyond the wikipedia introduction segment level, there is barely any backstory. Watched 2 episodes and learned nothing about heavens gate or cults in general. Dont watch this, do something fun instead or read the whole wikipedia page and learn more in less time...

Such strange priorities by the production company to give you zero, just constant babbling about nothing related to cults or heavens gate or the life in the cult.

Also bewildering chronology, who was in the cult when?

I really wanted to like this. I really did. Unfortunately, it was a boring and tedious 4 hours of attempting to make associations between Christianity, science fiction and cultism to explain this mass suicide. This series would have been greatly improved by delving into the mental illness aspect of the two leaders as well as the members. The series gave this group of lost souls a flowery lens, instead of really looking into the grifting, child abandonment and other reprhensible behavior this group of folks participated in. This would have been an amazing opportunity to shed light on the the types of personalities that are at risk to be swallowed up by psycopathic charismatic leaders. This series almost felt like it was making an excuse for the outcome, when it could have really used the platform to shed light on the ugly truth of the matter mental illness and at-risk populations.

I must say this doc is slow to the point, but it offers a truly inside look at this, almost entirely from first hand accounts. The music was great, with a great score, and soundtrack with some unexpected tunes from bands you know. One thing that this doc did right was the fact that they never broke the aspect ratio, as in they kept everything in 16:9 or relative, instead of going full Wes Anderson with the true aspect ratios of the different sets of film used over the years. In other words, they never broke the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. This detail might not seem important, but it helped maintain the immersion and once I noticed I couldn't help but appreciate the tricks they used to make it work. Great editing, and a film that takes its time. It lets most of the anecdotes breathe and be felt with proper impact, and it did not feel like they were manipulating the testimonies for any sort of rhetoric or agenda, other than to take a very deep inside look into the strange minds of men.