Audience Member
With a story as inherently sensational as Jonestown, the most shocking thing about this exploitation film treatment is how dull it is. Much of the time is spent on bland expository dialogue, though it does get better in its final moments. Gene Barry is good, and Stuart Whitman is decent as Jim Jones, though he isn't given much to do other then glower and rant, but the rest of the cast is pretty awful. A disappointment.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Uskonmiehelle ei käydä ryppyilemään!!
Pikkubudjetilla uskomattoman hyvä kuvaus tapahtumista Whitman kovassa vedossa
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/29/23
Full Review
Audience Member
4.5/10. So very made for television, and it misses making a compelling real life scenario into a professional and interesting film. The cast overacts, it is more sensational than truthful. What should have been a great film simply isn't.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/30/23
Full Review
Audience Member
In 1978, cult leader Jim Jones, not content with having a Congressman and various reporters shot when trying to help some of his cult members leave, summoned his flock and had them each drink down some poisoned fruit drink. Some say the drink was Kool-Aid. Others say Fla-Vor-Aid. Still others mention Wyler's, and a small but determined contingent is convinced that "Country Time Pink Lemonade" that caused the deaths of over 900 people. Some claim that the type of drink doesn't matter, and they're right.
What does matter after any national tragedy is the films produced from it. The Jonestown massacre had two of note, the most seen being 1980's [i]The Guyana Tragedy[/i], a three-hour long mini-series, featuring Powers Boothe as Jones. The film chronicles Jones rise to power, and includes then-major stars like Ned Beatty, Veronica Cartwright, Rosiland Cash, James Earl Jones, Brad Dourif, Diane Ladd, Randy Quaid and Brenda Vaccaro, among others. It's a well-made, classy affair, and one that concentrates more on the facts and characters than the horror.
I will have none of that.
No, for me, the golden grail of Guyana flicks has always been [i]Guyana: Cult of the Damned[/i], a reputedly sordid little piece of truthsploitation directed by Rene Cardona Jr., one of the masters of the form. Where there was a knockoff to be made, Cardona was there, whether it be shark attacks ([i]Tintorera: Tiger Shark[/i]), the Andes plane crash cannibalism story ([i]Survive!)[/i] or nearly a thousand people willingly gulping down tainted purple stuff.
I'd wanted to see [i]Guyana: Cult of the Damned[/i] for years, having built it up in my head as an exploitation masterpiece, simply because the story is so ripe for sleaze potential. As a cult leader, Jones reputededly put the Koreshes of the world to same, having pictures taken of himself having sex with his male followers to blackmail them, claiming to be cursed with an "enormous dick," practicing public torture, taking his followers' social security checks and forbidding them to leave with armed guards, all, as is the custom, in the name of God.
So the release of [i]Guyana[/i], now under the international title [i]Guyana, Crime of the Century[/i], letterboxed and uncut, was something I'd been chomping at the bit for. And here it is, on DVD.
And it's not very good.
Sure, it's okay. After a card claiming that the names have been changed to protect the innocent, we're introduced to Stuart Whitman playing, um, "James Johnson" (apparently the definition of "innocent" now includes mass murdering cult leaders) preaching to has band of followers in San Francisco. He tells them of his plans to move them all to Guyana, and they hartily agree, willfully doing all the work while, um, Johnson lounges around sleeping with his many wives.
Meanwhile, State Rep Ryan has been changed to Congressman O'Bryan, and he tries to console his worried constituants about Johnson's cultish behavior. He's thwarted, however, by Johnson's lawyers, played by slumming Joseph Cotten and John Ireland. (Probably not a bad paycheck, as mostly they just sat around an office talking.)
The sleaze never quite reaches the heights it could have, as this time, Cardona seems over his head. That's not to say the film is devoid of some sick moments. Three young boys, caught stealing, are stripped and tortured, and then Johnson walks into their barn prison and tells them, "I forgive you because I love you, but I will show you my true expression of love." Fade to black. Ew.
Johnson also catches a couple fornicating, then punishes them by forcing him to have sex with a big black man in front of the entire town. Nice.
Moments like this, however, are few and far between, and much of the film is taken up with actors in offices talking about what to do. The lawyers talk. The congressman talks. Johnson talks to his publicist (Yvonne DeCarlo, loking bored) and his doctor (Bradford Dillman, looking concerned). Talk, talk, talk.
It does get to the "good stuff" eventually, and the final fifteen minutes of shooting and mass suicide, compounded with footage of Johnson ranting and raving in psychedelic colors, is almost worth sitting though. But it's not enough to make up for the slow pacing, the inept dialogue and the fact that the opening gun-to-the-head suicide is never mentioned again in the film!
It's not an unwatchable film, and Whitman gives a good performance as Jones-er-Johnson, though Powers Boothe in [i]Guyana Tragedy[/i] was better. Not good enough to be an informative, respectful treatment of the real events and not lurid enough to be a dingy, grindhouse treatment of the same, [i]Guyana: Cult of the Damned[/i] is something of a disappointment.
(Future [i]RoboCop[/i] boss and former [i]Coffy [/i]bumper-dragger Robert DoQui appears briefly as one of the cult, but I don't remember him having any dialogue outside of praising Johnson.)
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
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