The secretive and illusive nature of cults has been depicted in film & TV for decades and these cults are formed on common beliefs and form unbreakable bonds between their members. Human curiosity has looked at these mysterious organisations in a variety of screenplays, examining cults’ religious devotions and obsessions.
In True Detective, homicide detectives Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson) try to solve a case of brutal, bizarre and ritualistic murders run by a mysterious cult in Southern Louisiana, so to coincide with the release we have compiled the best cults on film & TV…
Witness
An ‘80s classic that stars Harrison Ford, Witness centres on an American detective who makes it his purpose to protect a young Amish boy besieged by a merciless killer after bearing witness to a homicide in Philadelphia. Detective John Book (Ford), returns with the boy to an Amish commune and develops romantic feelings for the kid’s mother. Glittering with Academy Awards, BAFTAs and Golden Globes, Witness illustrates Amish traditionalism conflicting with the progression of a modern society.
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdW1BlDtcyU
Children of the Corn
Based on Stephen King’s short story, Children of the Corn horrifies audiences using a young male protagonist who visits a Nebraskan town and orders kids to murder the adult inhabitants. As the town’s streets become eerily desolate, the kids pray to a celestial force in the corn fields. Fritz Kiersh’s adaptation may not be the best cinematic production, but it is a sinister assault on the senses.
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdW1BlDtcyU
Eyes Wide Shut
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut co-starred Hollywood’s favourite couple, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The film depicts a certain Dr. Harford (Cruise), who develops an obsession with adultery after uncovering his wife’s lust for another man. After a wild night on the town, Harford hears of a sexual organisation and attends one of their meetings. What started as Harford’s hunger for sexual gratification quickly turns into nightmare, and this gripping thriller sketches the full effects of orgiastic chaos.
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_b-zpSnoHs
The Following
Perhaps none of these magnetic cult leaders has a more sinister final plan than Joe Carroll of The Following. He’s escaped from prison to take the life of the man who put him there, FBI Agent Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon). But Hardy’s blood is not likely to be the only person’s to be shed. While incarcerated, Carroll used his magnetic personality to attract fellow inmates to his cause, managing to convince them that he can fill a void in their lives. Once he reels them in, they are willing to do anything from kidnapping to murder and even self-sacrifice in order to allow Carroll to fulfil his dastardly aims.
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmNDzaLSMN8
Fight Club
The next famous cult movie is Fight Club starring Brad Pitt. The movie tells the story of an unnamed man suffering from insomnia who finds solace in attending support groups for people with worse ailments. The narrator becomes friends with a man named Tyler Durden and they start a fight club. Tyler begins to take these fight clubs to a new level and he gains a cult-like following. This new cult, or known as “Project Mayhem”, begins to form values against the current popular trends of the time like “corporate culture”. As the film progresses, the narrator is diagnosed with dissociative personality disorder and finds that he and Tyler are actually the same person and Tyler has a plot using the cult to blow up credit card companies. As the narrator tries to stop him he ends up killing Tyler in the struggle by shooting himself in the mouth.
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJMC_S-DB2I
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Martha Marcy May Marlene shows the repercussions that a cult has on a person who tries to return to the normality of everyday life. Martha had been living in a cult in the Catskills and decides to leave and go live with her sister and her husband against the cult’s wishes. While living with her sister Martha experiences extreme fits of paranoia and anxiety. Flashbacks provide insight into Martha’s life with the cult including when the cult leader Patrick raped her for the first time and seeing another member of the cult kill an innocent man. Her sister and husband continue to notice Martha’s abnormal behaviour like swimming in the lake naked and agree she needs help. Her anxiety hits an all time high when Martha thinks she sees one of the cult members at a party in her sister’s home. The next day Martha gets into the car with her sister to be taken to the mental health facility, but as she drives on she sees a man who she believed to be watching her earlier get into a car behind them and start following them as the movie ends leaving audiences to form their own conclusions on the outcome.
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_k3wCsOgqk
True Detective
In 2012, Louisiana State Police Detectives Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey), and Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson), are brought in to revisit a homicide case they worked in 1995. As the inquiry unfolds in present day through separate interrogations, the two former detectives narrate the story of their investigation, reopening unhealed wounds and drawing into question their solving of a bizarre ritualistic murder in 1995 which is linked to a cult formed by the leaders of the Hosana Church which involves cases in child sex abuse, devil worshipping and occult & Satanic rituals.
The timelines braid and converge into 2012, as each man is pulled back into a world they believed they’d left behind. In learning about each other and their killers, it becomes clear that darkness lives on both sides of the law.
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEIzwdCrlRY
TRUE DETECTIVE is released on Blu-ray and DVD on 9 June 2014 courtesy of HBO Home Entertainment.
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