{"id":2315,"date":"2024-08-16T02:33:33","date_gmt":"2024-08-16T02:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2315"},"modified":"2024-10-14T15:05:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T19:05:48","slug":"guyana-cult-of-the-damned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/16\/guyana-cult-of-the-damned\/","title":{"rendered":"Guyana: Cult of the Damned"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Guyana: Cult of the Damned<\/strong> (1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Drama-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (scenes of violence and torture, disturbing images, language, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rene Cardona Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Rene Cardona Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jimmie Haskell and Alfredo Diaz Ordaz\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Leopoldo Villasenor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 25, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $3.7M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: NO STARS!!!<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Movie That Dares To Tell The Truth Behind The Most Shocking Crime Of The Century\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom The Headlines To A Theater Near You\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0These are a couple of taglines I recall seeing and hearing for Guyana: Cult of the Damned<\/strong>, 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 \u201cThe 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.\u201d You want to run that by me again?<\/p>\n

\u00a0The incident in question made international headlines. At the time, there wasn\u2019t a person over the age of 10 who didn\u2019t know the name Reverend Jim Jones and what went down in the cult leader\u2019s settlement Jonestown that awful day. Why then did the makers of Guyana: Cult of the Damned<\/strong> 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Given that 40 years have passed since the horrific incident, it\u2019s 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\u2019t cooperate were forced. Jones then took his own life. All told, 918 men, women, children and babies died.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A little over a year later, Guyana: Cult of the Damned<\/strong> 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, \u201cReverend James Johnson\u201d (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 \u201cLee O\u2019Brien\u201d (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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0To put it simply, Guyana: Cult of the Damned<\/strong> is an exploitative piece of slime masquerading as a movie. To say it\u2019s in bad taste would be an insult to bad taste. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This scene is the sole reason for the existence of Guyana: Cult of the Damned<\/strong>. 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\u2019s fanatical sermons. We don\u2019t 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\u2019Brien to rescue her. Even then, she\u2019s presented in the most simplistic way- i.e. a cult member brainwashed beyond rational thought. We do, however, get to meet members of Johnson\u2019s inner circle like Dr. Shaw (Dillman, Piranha) and public relations rep \u201cSusan Ames\u201d (DeCarlo, The Munsters).<\/p>\n

\u00a0It would be pointless to comment on the acting in Guyana: Cult of the Damned<\/strong> if not for Whitman\u2019s 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\u2019s a murderer, I\u2019d say he\u2019s laughable. As for the rest of the cast, let me put it this way. Guyana: Cult of the Damned<\/strong> is the kind of cheap movie that trots out a group of has-been actors and subjects them to embarrassment with material that\u2019s 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\u2019t much better. In fact, it\u2019s worse. The movie opens with a suicide at a press conference in early \u201979 that goes unexplained. Who is this person and why does he kill himself? Cardona never comes back to this. If you\u2019re not familiar with the facts of the case, the movie will likely leave you confused.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Guyana: Cult of the Damned<\/strong> is especially bad on a technical level. It\u2019s obvious that neither art nor craftsmanship factored into the equation at any point in the production. It\u2019s one of the shoddiest movies ever released by a major studio. It\u2019s 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\u2019s a mess. In the airfield scene, it\u2019s impossible to discern between the killers and soldiers trying to stop them. It\u2019s also hard to tell who gets killed. And I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the DVD transfer, but much of the cinematography is blurry and out of focus.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the end, Guyana: Cult of the Damned<\/strong> is nothing more than a geek show. Disgusting and despicable, it\u2019s 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\u2019s Guyana: Cult of the Damned<\/strong>. Hey, maybe that\u2019s 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?\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Drama-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (scenes of violence and torture, disturbing images, language, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rene Cardona Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Rene Cardona Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jimmie Haskell and Alfredo Diaz Ordaz\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Leopoldo Villasenor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 25, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Stuart Whitman, Gene Barry, John Ireland, Joseph Cotten, Bradford […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Guyana-Cult-of-the-Damned-P.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2315"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3315,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315\/revisions\/3315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}