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Off-late I discovered an entire sub-genre of movies that I seemed to not have talked about - movies that display the dynamics of a cult. While I have watched all of these movies before, I haven't really analyzed them from the perspective of being based on cults or cult-like backgrounds.
Here we will cover movies that delve into the world of cults with all the things they bring with them.
Disclaimer: The definition of a cult has been controversial at best, and any information referenced in this article shouldn't be considered facts (although they are based on information available in the world about cults)
What is a cult?
A cult is a social group marked by excessive devotion to a single figure, object, or belief system, frequently led by a charismatic individual. The term is commonly connected with unorthodox religious sects that participate in dubious rituals and public displays.
While some individuals remain lifelong cult members, others manage to leave and reveal their experiences of indoctrination. However, there is a minority of former members who do report positive experiences.
What are the common characteristics of a cult?
There are specific warning signs to look out for when considering whether a group might be a cult.
Authoritarian Control: Absolute leadership with no accountability, intolerance of dissent, and a belief in the leader's infallible wisdom.
Isolation and Fear: Fostering fear of the outside world, promoting conspiracy theories, and discouraging critical thinking.
Exploitation and Abuse: Financial exploitation, emotional manipulation, and physical or psychological abuse of members.
Indoctrination and Mind Control: Techniques to instill unwavering loyalty, suppress individuality, and create dependency on the group.
By recognizing these warning signs, individuals can protect themselves from the harmful influence of cults.
What are the types of cults?
Cults can take many different forms. Here are the best-known types of cults:
Religious Cults
These cults center around a charismatic leader who claims divine insight. Often branching from established religions, they isolate members, imposing strict rules and rituals, and cutting them off from the outside world.
Doomsday Cults
Believing in an impending apocalypse, these cults focus on preparing for the end times. Stockpiling supplies and, in some cases, engaging in violent or illegal activities are common practices within these groups.
Intimacy Cults
Using sexuality as a tool of control, these cults coerce or brainwash members into engaging in intimate acts with the leader or other members. These acts are often justified as necessary for spiritual enlightenment.
Movies that Explore the Dynamics of a Cult
These movies all have one thing in common, they have a cult at the core of the plot, which is up to no good, and does terrible things regularly to keep the cult alive.
1. Get Out
One of the most nuanced movies I've ever seen, Get Out is a metaphor that reframes one of man's greatest mistakes in a modern context. A shady family keeps taking in new members only to run medical experiments on them which is horrifying, to say the least.
Jordan Peele has said that all the dialogue you hear in the first half of the movie takes on a new meaning after watching the second half. I just rewatched the movie and he's right, everything that's said has a deeper meaning which is almost always ominous.
There are just so many layers to this movie with each layer making so much sense and complimenting each other. Peele's debut as a director was highly eventful, winning several awards including four Academy Award Nominations and winning one for Best Writing.
The sound design in this movie is really important and done well considering most of the jump scares are at normal sound volume. The set design and filming locale are also well-chosen to portray the movie's plot.
The special effects in this movie are something really special, with Jordan Peele portraying the suffering of a whole race of people through one visually eloquent shot called the sunken place. There is also plenty of action - none of which is gratuitous and background score lining up the audience for jump scares and more.
One of the most fun facts about Get Out is that it is named after Eddie Murphy's comedy special Delirious where an African-American checks out an old mansion only to have a ghost tell them "Get Out...!" If you don't believe it then Peele's third movie is named "Nope" which is what the family says after hearing the ghost in the house.
Cast
The performances in this movie are top-notch and create a strong impression in the audience's mind. Whether it is Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, or Betty Gabriel - to date, their role in Get Out comes to mind when I come across the movie's cast in any other content.
Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Washington offers up the performance of a lifetime in a movie directed by Jordan Peele.
Allison Williams as Rose Armitage makes people fall in love with her so that she can bring them back to her family and subject them to inhuman medical procedures. She is an amazing actor, exuding an aura of pure evil that harms everything it touches. When you compare this performance to her role in M3gan, you can see her range as both the "bad gal" and the "good gal."
LaKeith Stanfield plays Andre Logan King, the young African-American male who has been integrated into the creepy cult that this movie revolves around. His performance while brief, is highly praiseworthy.
Caleb Landry Jones plays the creepy son Jeremy Armitage who serves as muscle for the Armitage family. This wasn't such a tough role to play, but Jones does bring his best to the table and shares good chemistry with the cast.
Lil Rel Howery as Rod Williams provides the comic relief in this tense psychological horror thriller. He is Chris's protective friend who warns before and during the ordeal that Chris goes through as well as an excellent and well-placed "I Told You So."
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Catherine Keener plays the villainous character Missy Armitage who is involved in helping her husband perform twisted experiments that harm the subject while profiting off the procedure. Missy is a practicing psychiatrist who dabbles in hypnosis and uses it for purposes that are less than altruistic.
It brings up a question in my mind about the Salem witch trials where women were persecuted for witchcraft which sounds a lot like modern medicine, including psychology. Neil Gaiman's Marvel 1602 comic touches upon a similar theme where the X-Men are perceived as witches due to their powers. My theory is that some of the women who were executed were just healers, using techniques such as speech therapy or the talking cure that was way ahead of their time.
Bradley Whitford, as Dean Armitage, does a great job of being the creepmaster general in this terrifying movie. Dean is the patriarch of the family and the brains behind the evil operation running under the cover of the community.
Betty Gabriel's performance as a person named Georgina whose mind has been thoroughly manipulated is amazing, with her feminine baritone creeping the audience out with great precision and efficiency.
Marcus Henderson as Walter the stoic gardener also delivers a great performance in the short screen time he has in the movie. His creepy smile and style of talking take the prize for the most disturbing things I have seen on the big screen.
I have purposefully left out major plot elements and references so that if you haven't watched Get Out, you will have a spoiler-free experience.
2. The Hunt
One of the better action movies out there, The Hunt has a bare-bones plotline that is executed really well, with a billionaire and her affluent friends literally hunting humans for sport in a carefully selected location.
Betty Gilpin kicks butt as Crystal May Creasey, a US veteran who has settled for the life of a blue-collar worker post her deployment. Without Betty Gilpin, there IS no movie. After waking up in the middle of nowhere along with a bunch of strangers, she has to fight for her survival, tapping into her tactical skills and vast reserves of unprocessed anger.
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This movie is all about the action and it's on point. Gilpin's fighting style seems to be heavily influenced by military training, which is why her attacks are so efficient. My favorite sequence by far in this movie is when Gilpin takes out a bunker of civilians armed to the teeth, by basically taking a stroll and using the bare minimal physical effort. The movie is great until this scene, and then gets immediately terrible, almost bringing the whole thing down to a B-Grade film.
Hilary Swank as Athena has been dealt bad cards and given a 2-dimensional role at best. She plays a billionaire who along with a couple of her friends and peers goes on an illegal hunting spree where they hunt more than just game.
Ethan Suplee plays Gary, the red-neck among the crowd of victims who is trigger-happy and can't wait to find a way out of their predicament
Amy Madigan as Ma and Reed Birney as Pop play a couple who prove that marriage doesn't really change you for the better. They are Athena's peers who engage in the illegal sport whose sole ritualistic goal is to kill people.
3. Midsommar
One of the typical movies that describes what happens in cults, Midsommar is horrifying in its simple portrayal of how a cult dissembles individuality and merges it with a collective consciousness that serves only a person/a group of people with twisted beliefs and ideologies.
Florence Pugh as Dani paints quite the picture of a broken person who is the ideal candidate to be led astray and into the bosom of a cult. After losing her family to a tragedy, Dani's strained relationship with her boyfriend Christian played by Jack Reynor is pushed to the brink, leading to far-reaching consequences.
Dani, Christian, and friends accept an invitation from a Swedish commune to a festival that happens only once in 90 years. However, there are psychedelics, strange rituals that are well out of the realm of legality, and a bad vibe that permeates the whole experience. Things quickly go out of control when Christian and his friends end up having lengthier interactions with the commune.
There is a lot of body horror in Midsommar, dark moments of unsettling horror that sink in over time, and a detailed look into how cults target, dissemble, and then re-integrate the person of interest into their group.
The end shows Dani smiling at something horrific, accepting where she is, and indicating that all hopes of leading a normal life are gone. This moment is probably open to interpretation, but my take on the scene is that this is when Dani's personality merges with the collective consciousness of the commune.
4. The Wickerman
A remake of the 1973 movie, The Wickerman (2006) is the quintessential Nicholas Cage movie with all his quirks and mannerisms fitting right into the plot and execution of the movie.
Nicolas Cage plays a cop named Edward Malus who receives a troubling message from his ex-wife Willow Woodward that their daughter Rowan has gone missing. This leads Edward on a trip to an island off the Washington coast where neo-pagans reside. (Neopaganism is a modern revival of ancient European spiritual practices, often polytheistic, that draws inspiration from pre-Christian traditions of northern and western Europe. Many Neopagans embrace pantheism, honoring the divine in all things.)
Upon arriving Edward meets the cult leader Sister Summersilsle played well by Ellen Burstyn who goes on to say that most of the island is female and evading any other questions, including how the gender ratio is maintained.
Things get worse with time as Edward spots strange goings-on including a bag dripping with blood and blank faces whenever he enquires about his missing daughter. Eventually, when Edward does find his daughter tied to a tree he tries to flee only to be brought back to the cult leader as the human sacrifice for an ominous ritual.
5. Ready or Not
They say there's a crime behind every fortune, and for the Domas family, that crime is murder. The Domas family runs a gaming empire that earned them massive reserves of wealth and plans to continue holding on to their wealth and status. They believe that any new addition to the family through marriage will have to play a game according to a vintage game box whose stakes are usually life and death.
Depending on the card drawn from the game box, the family sacrifices the new person in a ritual sacrifice. By performing this weird, ominous, and illegal ritual the family will continue to retain their wealth and influence for a certain period. If the ritual isn't performed, the Domas family believes strongly that something bad will happen to everyone in the family that will lead to death.
Samara Weaving as Grace Le Domas is great at the action in this movie, running for her life and taking out family members in the process. She is shown as a fit person in the prime of her life who is coming across such lunacy for the first time and adapts quickly to her situation, letting her instincts of self-preservation take over.
Adam Brody as Daniel Le Domas delivers a great performance as a cult member who wants to leave the family but stays due to circumstances. This role seems like one of the characters he played in the movie Jennifer's Body is trying to reform himself through acts of nobility and sacrifice.
There's Andie MacDowell and Henry Czerny as Becky Le Domas and Tony Le Domas and Mark O'Brien as Alex Le Domas. These characters along with the rest get very little screen time but the plot doesn't suffer since this is mostly told through Grace's perspective.
Wrapping Up
If you have the stomach for it, these movies make for a great watch. At the very least these movies are examples of great moviemaking, at their worst serve as a jump scare factory. Either way, this should be an entertaining, if morbid watch.