Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1980) Universal/Drama-Thriller RT: 107 minutes Rated R (scenes of violence and torture, disturbing images, language, nudity) Director: Rene Cardona Jr. Screenplay: Rene Cardona Jr. Music: Jimmie Haskell and Alfredo Diaz Ordaz Cinematography: Leopoldo Villasenor Release date: January 25, 1980 (US) Cast: Stuart Whitman, Gene Barry, John Ireland, Joseph Cotten, Bradford Dillman, Jennifer Ashley, Yvonne De Carlo, Nadiuska, Tony Young, Erika Carlsson, Robert DoQui, Hugo Stiglitz, Carlos East. Box Office: $3.7M (US)
Rating: NO STARS!!!
“The Movie That Dares To Tell The Truth Behind The Most Shocking Crime Of The Century”
“From The Headlines To A Theater Near You”
These are a couple of taglines I recall seeing and hearing for Guyana: Cult of the Damned, a supposedly fact-based docudrama about the Jonestown Massacre. I knew right away what kind of movie to expect from the opening titles which read “The events depicted in this motion picture are based on the real and tragic suicides and murders that took place in Guyana in November 1978. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.” You want to run that by me again?
The incident in question made international headlines. At the time, there wasn’t a person over the age of 10 who didn’t know the name Reverend Jim Jones and what went down in the cult leader’s settlement Jonestown that awful day. Why then did the makers of Guyana: Cult of the Damned feel it was necessary to change the names to James Johnson and Johnsontown? Everybody already knew the facts of the case and the names of the people involved. Moreover, it was still fresh in everybody’s minds. The movie came out approximately 14 months later meaning writer-director Rene Cardona Jr. (The Bermuda Triangle) wasted no time getting the cameras rolling on this chunk of crap.
Given that 40 years have passed since the horrific incident, it’s probably a good idea to explain it to my younger readers. Jones was a cult leader who urged his followers to relocate to a jungle commune in Guyana (i.e. Jonestown) to escape the evils of the outside world. He had his followers convinced he was a messiah. In 1978, Congressman Leo Ryan, accompanied by several reporters, visited Jonestown to investigate reports of abuse and forced servitude. He invited anybody who wished to leave to come back to the States with him. After ordering a hit squad to kill them at the airfield, Jones ordered his followers to commit suicide by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid (hence the expression). Those who didn’t cooperate were forced. Jones then took his own life. All told, 918 men, women, children and babies died.
A little over a year later, Guyana: Cult of the Damned slithered it way into theaters. Cardona takes several dramatic liberties with names and details but the basic facts are the same. In the late 70s, “Reverend James Johnson” (Whitman, The Comancheros) and his congregation relocate to Guyana where they adopt an agrarian lifestyle. After the murder of the son of a friend by cult members, Congressman “Lee O’Brien” (Barry, The War of the Worlds) promises to investigate Johnson and his church. You already know the rest- the visit, the defection by disheartened followers, the airfield attack and, of course, the mass suicide.
To put it simply, Guyana: Cult of the Damned is an exploitative piece of slime masquerading as a movie. To say it’s in bad taste would be an insult to bad taste. It’s lower than low. It plunges the depths of human depravity in giving us scenes of children being tortured and cult members being sexually humiliated. Then, of course, is the scene everybody is waiting for, the mass suicide. Cardona spares no details in showing cult members either drinking poison or having it forcibly poured down their throats after which they stagger around, clutch their stomachs and die agonizing deaths.
This scene is the sole reason for the existence of Guyana: Cult of the Damned. Not once does Cardona attempt to probe the crime for reasons and motivations. Instead, we get endless scenes of cult members being herded around as they work the land or listen to their leader’s fanatical sermons. We don’t even get to know any of the members other than a young woman, Anna (Ashley, The Pom Pom Girls), whose father and brother come with O’Brien to rescue her. Even then, she’s presented in the most simplistic way- i.e. a cult member brainwashed beyond rational thought. We do, however, get to meet members of Johnson’s inner circle like Dr. Shaw (Dillman, Piranha) and public relations rep “Susan Ames” (DeCarlo, The Munsters).
It would be pointless to comment on the acting in Guyana: Cult of the Damned if not for Whitman’s hammy performance as Johnson/Jones, a paranoid sort convinced that CIA agents lurk behind every tree in the jungle. If not for the fact that he’s a murderer, I’d say he’s laughable. As for the rest of the cast, let me put it this way. Guyana: Cult of the Damned is the kind of cheap movie that trots out a group of has-been actors and subjects them to embarrassment with material that’s way beneath them. Some of them, like John Ireland (Red River) and Joseph Cotten (Citizen Kane), appear in only a scene or two. Did they need the money that badly? The narrative isn’t much better. In fact, it’s worse. The movie opens with a suicide at a press conference in early ’79 that goes unexplained. Who is this person and why does he kill himself? Cardona never comes back to this. If you’re not familiar with the facts of the case, the movie will likely leave you confused.
Guyana: Cult of the Damned is especially bad on a technical level. It’s obvious that neither art nor craftsmanship factored into the equation at any point in the production. It’s one of the shoddiest movies ever released by a major studio. It’s poorly lit in several scenes, especially the ones depicting violence. The editing reminds one of the Three Stooges attempting to make a tossed salad. It’s a mess. In the airfield scene, it’s impossible to discern between the killers and soldiers trying to stop them. It’s also hard to tell who gets killed. And I don’t know if it’s the DVD transfer, but much of the cinematography is blurry and out of focus.
In the end, Guyana: Cult of the Damned is nothing more than a geek show. Disgusting and despicable, it’s the complete opposite of a serious treatment of a horrible tragedy. In his rush to be the first to make a movie about the Jonestown Massacre, Cardona missed the opportunity to make a statement about religious fanaticism or explore why people join cults. What he did instead is make a movie that should be used in film schools as an example of how NOT to make a movie. If ever a movie demanded a lawsuit, it’s Guyana: Cult of the Damned. Hey, maybe that’s why Cardona really changed the names. He was protecting his own ass. Then again, any rational thinking person knows that suing anybody connected with the movie would lend it validity. Why call attention to something that should never be seen by anyone EVER?
