Cult Classics
Let us talk about cults, their active ingredients, and their xenomorphic allure.
We are social creatures with personalities deeply intertwined with our environments. How we juggle external touchpoints (our relations) and internal systems (our protective psychologies and reactive defense mechanisms) are crucial in determining what we tend to believe or what we reject. Our awareness of what affects us, to what degree, and how, is a humbling force. An indicator of our grasp on reality.
Our susceptibility to cults, conspiracies, mythologies, logical fallacies, propaganda, or misinformation all derive from the same corner of human cognition. The same place we foster diehard dedication to political figures, sports fandoms, pop cultural obsessions – beliefs in everything from alternative medicine and the cornucopia of supernatural phenomena to more mundane things like which habits to integrate into our lifestyle. Anything that requires a suspension of our critical faculties or dismissal of nature – and of each other – without being accompanied by its own scrutable schematic, is telling of a tall tale.
Cults and the accounts they provide are part of a larger narrative of our collective socialization. Human experience is guided by our failure or success to connect with others; humanity’s is a story of seeking connection. And there are many rabbit holes that humans can easily fit into.
This post is an exploration of instructional parables that illustrate how easily our need for bonding can be rewired to suit specific aims. Primarily, and as is often the case in our world, to build egos and movements seeking power or profit by tapping into a resource that is never in short supply: our yearning to believe. A formidable evolutionary development. And while it can take many a nefarious form, it is also necessary in constructing the monuments of which we are so collectively proud. It takes quite a leap to go from hunter-gatherer societies to establishing global information networks and putting rovers on planets afar in the geological blink of an eye.
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(Another) Preamble
It is important to contextualize the relevance of this topic. Just south of the 49th parallel sits an obvious contemporary example. I will focus here on a small aspect of a wider political project that dates back many decades, one that relates specifically to grassroots organizing of American Evangelicals.
I recall watching 2006’s Jesus Camp during my undergraduate days. As documentaries go, it does an adept job at threading the exposé needle without too much narration. There is one radio show host who is heard providing his opinion on the religious influence over legislation being written and on judicial nominees for the country’s highest court, a succinct summary of the US’s budding polarization. The documentary highlighted for me the growing Evangelical megachurch movement in the continental US, and how engaged followers of the credos espoused were forming a most unshakeable base of a distinct and extremist right-wing lobby. One envisioned by conservative power brokers following the hippie-led antiestablishment protests of the sixties and seventies, which sought freedom from the draft, transparency on military spending, and a more laissez-faire attitude towards citizen engagement with drugs and loved ones. It was Evangelicals, easily organized through churches and burgeoning Christian media networks, the fuel for the fire, who were behind the ascension of Reagan to the presidency. An extremely consequential decade followed resulting in a legacy that is still being felt today; the Christian takeover of American courts, originalism as a foundational doctrine, and the marriage of lobbies of wealth, gun ownership, and antigovernment radicalism – these began to be cemented in earnest after the election of a Hollywood actor to the most powerful office in the world.
The film came out at a time when academics, journalists, and social critics were warning against the return to fundamentalism that seemed to be a mainstay of so many Sunday sermons. It was within nine months of Jesus Camp hitting the screens that Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Chris Hedges’ American Fascists, Dan Dennett’s Breaking the Spell, and Chris Hitchens’ God Is Not Great were all published. In fact, only three days after the release of the documentary, Sam Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation also found its way to bookstore shelves. What an onslaught the new atheists had launched in the mid-2000s. While I have qualms with the scholarship within, positions taken, and assumptions made in many of these texts (from both an academic and philosophical lens), I can empathize with their collective worry regarding an impending cultification of American politics.
What documentaries like Jesus Camp and the aforementioned publications revealed was an evolving milieu within rural American heartlands. One that had transformed the idea of community to revolve specifically around figureheads rather than ideals or values. Not that this was not always the case, to some degree, within smaller subsets of the population, but how political action committees and lobby groups had decided to co-opt and further entrench regressive structures and use them to build mainstream majorities. From gerrymandered districts and political proclamations via the pulpit to new media conglomerations designed entirely to funnel propaganda to specific jurisdictions, the religious right wing had developed a robust, self-sustaining machine that was powered by controversies generated by divisive social issues in order to output economic policies that benefitted very few. Inequality, in all its aspects, ballooning. Its cornerstones the racial and class hierarchies never truly addressed through policy, but instead employed as distractions.
Jesus Camp followed young children as they attended a summer camp run by Evangelical ministers, and the activities in which they participated. You need only observe a scene in the film where the kids pray over a cardboard cutout of George W Bush, repeating anti-abortion slogans chanted by the facilitator, to understand the enthusiastic demonstrations outside courthouses, schools, clinics, and state halls led by the Evangelical right to this day. The camp shown, and others like it, cultivated as much love in a mythical figure as they did in real ones. It is especially unbelievable when you subsequently view the tirades against popular ‘witches’ and ‘warlocks’ (i.e. Harry Potter characters) within the documentary and a speech delivered on the congressional floor by a representative of the House against those campaigning for LGBTQ rights, as covered by any modern news outlet. The language aligns almost perfectly. The fight is against these “enemies of God” who “you don’t make heroes out of”.
I place these thoughts here before highlighting the films below because what we are talking about goes beyond your daily, milquetoast engagement with religious faith. We are seeing in Jesus Camp and political movements referenced a real-life illustration of what it takes to inspire cult-like fear in a populace. What drives people to a poisonous party or person in spite of all other forces and drives them to disconnect from shared realities. The microcosm of Evangelicalism in the US is of course visible in political movements across the world; I chose only to speak on this one as it is nearby and well understood by those of us in Canada. We have, just as closely as our neighbors, watched the rise and takeover of the GOP’s Tea Party, then the catastrophe of the 2016 election, against the backdrop of these small grassroots campaigns that capture young imaginations.
There is a neat line between promotion of these tendencies towards cult-like devotion to the election of a bumbling buffoon, who nonetheless operates as a useful idiot for those in power. And the machine keeps churning, ensuring the base is kept charged through a sophisticated media ecosystem aided by the constant feedback loops of social media engagement tending to further extremes.
Keep in mind, the GOP published no platform in 2020 prior to their convention because they knew it did not matter. They could run on nothing and still put on a strong contest, because the pedestal they had built was effectively occupied. That is the power of cults. No need to govern, but to foster control.
And so this project down south continues, to minimize critical inquiry and maximize public debt – in finance, education, and sociopolitical ability. There are other projects, of course, and we see plenty of competition each election cycle. But this one, from the cult of Reagan to Bush to Trump, is the most successful. The megachurches, racism, and institutional supports lining its arches still shining bright.
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Cult Classics
These five films are ‘cult classics’ in both definitions of that term. They have their animated followings, particularly among Psychological Thriller genre enthusiasts, hence fitting the ‘cult film’ moniker. In addition, I would argue they collectively offer a solid introduction to the core ideas of cults and their draws. They are worthy fictional representations of cults, cult leaders, and belief manipulation. But what makes them each a ‘classic’ is their more nuanced exploration of personal relationships, isolation, trauma, and the contours of power itself.
The cult is the surface layer and the setting. Each dives deeper into other salient themes we will briefly touch on here. In short, I encourage viewing each as its own unique case study in warped faith.
As mentioned above, these are instructional parables. That does not mean entertainment need be sacrificed. For each film, I shall share a primer on the premise, or the apparent narrative, and then dive into the actual story, or the layers below inviting reflection. Finally, I will underline for you a standout scene. Each film has many, but I can relay a highpoint to pique your attention.
If you are wary of spoilers, note the premise and initial comments, but place the bookmark before you read into the actual story. These are not reviews, nor will I provide wholesale descriptions of plots. I am sharing here specific themes from each movie, and why I recommend watching them.
Time to dive in.
FAULTS
Ansel: I was in control. I used her. I could have helped her, but I chose not to. I made that choice.
Claire: And that choice cost you everything.
Ansel: Everything, yes.
Claire: Tell me what you lost. I want to hear it.
Ansel: My show, money, my house, my wife…
Claire: NO! Those are things. What did you lose?
Ansel: Every kind of respect.
It is only appropriate to begin with 2014’s Faults. The premise is straightforward and immediately intriguing. Ansel Roth, a derelict author, former talk show host, and an expert on cults and deprogramming, is recruited by parents to save their daughter, Claire, from a group calling itself ‘Faults’. The parents have had little contact with her and fear for her life. Ansel, our protagonist, is homeless, in debt, and in desperate need of the money promised by the parents. All conspiring parties agree to an extreme intervention – a kidnapping in broad daylight and quarantining of the subject in a motel room, for mental exercises that will ‘rescue’ her.
It makes sense to begin here because aside from the premise above, we also get a fairly quick introduction to cults and their mechanisms within the first seven minutes of the film, courtesy of a tired presentation delivered by our lead. It is one of many instances throughout the narrative demonstrating how easily facades can be erected and felled. Writer-director Riley Stearns fills his movie with several segments where, in the span of thirty seconds or less, you have dramatic swings in who seemingly has the upper hand. Aside from the numerous parleys between our two main characters, we also glimpse these unsaid tonal changes between Claire and a kidnapper, Ansel and Claire’s parents, and of course the alarming exchange that kicks off the film, involving Ansel and an audience member.
Control is fleeting | Credit: Snoot Entertainment
Now, onto the actual story worth exploring (spoilers ahead). Whenever you hear specialists in dependence speak, whether they are referring to drugs or habits, you will hear them say that the opposite of ‘addiction’ is ‘connection’. While many real-life cults also combine psychological pressures with addictive substances, they are very much an addiction in and of themselves. You need only evaluate the detriment of withdrawing from an in-group to join an out-group that has ostracized you to begin to understand this concept. Faults adeptly makes this argument.
Ansel is a broken man. He steals supplies from a hotel, scarfs down each meal betraying the length of his hunger, and bargains on the paltry price of his signature on a book no one is interested in buying. He also quickly succumbs to the posturing of everyone around him without offering a challenge – a marked contrast from the figure we get brief glimpses of through video tapes of his former talk show. Ansel has had his friends, family, and power taken from him as a consequence of his own malpractice. His confidence dented permanently and with no recourse on the horizon, he peddles his way through unsuccessful seminars, alone but for the guilt he carries.
In showcasing all this alongside Ansel and Claire’s mental to-and-fro within the motel room, we are offered a front row seat to how vulnerability and hopelessness can be a boon to forging harmful cravings. In this case, with a group and its representative (Claire) who promise not only freedom from the black hole that society has enacted upon an individual’s life, but the power of a welcoming circle. By the time Ansel is convinced by Claire of her group’s capacity (by extremely weak evidence that hinges on easily constructed circumstantial events), we have no doubt of his conviction. He has ceded agency because he has given up; committing murder using the very book that built then crumbled his career.
We are left to wonder why a renowned academic would not question his would-be employers more. Of course they are not her parents, rather members of the group assisting in his recruitment. Why would he go to such desperate measures so quickly? Why would he not pause before putting his own wellbeing in peril? The point is the answers do not matter because we were always watching a person looking for a way out. They had nothing left to gain from continuing the charade of seeking redemption. Their ascribed vulnerability was enough to ensure this cult conscription. Faults thus covers the basics.
When Ansel asks Claire where they are headed during the film’s conclusion, she answers: “Home”. He now has one.
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Regarding its standout scene, one is prominent for a number of reasons. A quick succession of events. When considering the context of the entire film, it ends up being a surreal set of revealing moments, essentially predicating the concluding submission of Ansel’s character.
Credit: Snoot Entertainment
In need of funds and still reeling from a gaslighting exercise, Ansel confronts his supposed allies. He opens the door to the adjoining motel room, where Claire’s parents (who the audience has doubted for a while) are seated eerily still at the foot of their beds and staring blankly straight ahead. Meditative states unnatural. Ansel confronts the ‘father’ and demands payment, stating he has lost trust in the pair.
“I want the money now! I don’t trust you! I don’t trust any of this! Everything is fucked and I have to look out for myself!”
The ‘mother’ barely moves as the altercating occurs, and Ansel is slammed against the door, his debt yet again held over him as the reason for his powerlessness. Claire rushes in and restores calm, only for her ‘father’ to break down at her touch. When back in their room with the door closed, in words carefully chosen to reiterate Ansel’s attachments to controlling forces, Claire convinces him to stay and see out his planned deprogramming. Who is imparting the consequential influence is now no longer a question.
For those interested, Faults can be viewed in its entirety here on Youtube (the scene described above goes from 1:02:30-1:05:49).
SOUND OF MY VOICE
“Somewhere in the valley, there is a woman living in a basement who claims to be from the future. She’s actually amassing followers. These people who believe she’ll lead them to salvation… or… whatever. And yes, she’s dangerous! But we have to see this thing through, all the way. Or we’re chumps.”
For those thinking themselves uncapturable by the specter of a cult, 2011’s Sound of My Voice provides a worthy rebuke. The brainchild of creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij (whose more recent work I have discussed previously), Sound is an exploration of where unfettered obsession can lead. Faith is often fostered, and incongruencies in evidence forgotten, when it is pitted against unforgiving skepticism. Religious dictums, myths and ideologies sometimes matter little when there is a charismatic pull towards a central figure who guarantees the world. There is a natural need to believe in the miraculous in us all. And in certain conditions, this need becomes all-excusing.
The film is in the same tradition as many a thriller – relying on ambiguity. Offering the audience two completely opposing potentialities and asking us to choose which is more compelling. Similar in its shading of the truth to the masterfully crafted Burning, albeit with a less complex thesis. It also has many flaws; I have qualms with the ordering of its scenes and how it is framed. But Sound nonetheless conveys its premise effectively: a couple goes undercover to investigate a growing cult and gather material for an exposé. They both begin the movie as firm skeptics with a clear agenda, but how they respond to the cult leader’s persona is where the rub lies.
They research months in advance, participate in the cult’s activities once through its doors, earn the trust of its members and leader, Maggie, and face constant struggles attempting to record their trials. Slowly, they immerse themselves in the nonsense while trying to keep their guard up.
The leader’s aura looms large in the frame, for skeptics and believers alike | Credit: Skyscraper Films
And that is the actual story here (spoilers ahead). The couple, Peter and Lorna, are interested in cults for their own reasons. Lorna is a survivor of Hollywood’s underbelly and knows the tricks of the trade. Peter is much less weathered, being inscrutably attracted to Maggie and her tales. Their paths begin to diverge around the midpoint of the film. As the audience, we are keenly aware of a turn in Peter’s tone as he rattles off his conviction to the couple’s project throughout the film. His assurances become less credible as he falls deeper into Maggie’s spell. This is the journey of a skeptic becoming a believer, again forgiving the gaps in the figurehead’s knowledge for a stake in communal practice. Peter is more easily manipulated through various traumatizing drills and repetition of truths gathered through cold reading. He has clearly learned about the cult but is not yet prepared to handle its mental onslaught.
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Sound is a good test of your tolerance in entertaining the ridiculous. Maggie claims to be from the future, which she describes as dystopic, and aims to prepare the group for what’s to come in the hopes of creating a resilient community that each member can depend on. The story never confirms what is true, but neither does it need to. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and what we see in the movie falls well short of that high bar.
The film deserves its place in many a cult marathon. A standout scene arrives around 48 minutes in, when the group is seated around Maggie, who is regaling them with the realities of 2054. She begins to speak about songs on the radio, and one group member asks her to sing one for them. As she does, the members join her in the chorus. When she finishes, there are smiles around the room, with one exception. The member who asked her to sing is puzzled, noting that the song is actually a couple decades old. Maggie immediately deflects, noting it could be that it was sampled in the future tune, and uses the opportunity to reestablish her infallibility through authority, kicking the questioning member out after a series of comments and questions that put him in a defensive position. The member’s wife, a dedicated devotee, chooses to stay as her husband is escorted out; this community’s importance has overtaken her partner’s.
Another affirmation of how effective abusive relationships can be in keeping people in their orbit.
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE
“I don’t blame you for not trusting people. If you’re ever going to have a meaningful relationship, you need to let your guard down. It’s not your fault but it’s there. If you feel safe here, and I hope you do, let us in. We want to help you. […] But if you’re going to live here, you need to be a part of things.”
Another movie released in 2011, from an East Coast setting within rural Appalachia that offers a valuable complement to the Californian basements from Sound of My Voice, is Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene. I will not repeat the beats around connection that I have already shared in the notes regarding Faults above; this film also covers those quite well. We are watching a similar story within a vastly different context, though following a markedly stronger protagonist who is attempting to surface and avoid drowning.
Here, the premise is twofold. Firstly, a woman tries to escape from the cult she lived with for two years, as she no longer finds solace or comfort in their way of life. She has run away, but the members continue to pursue her. They are ever-present in her mind, a source of constant fear, but also just around the literal corner – observing from nearby beaches, running around rooftops at night, hidden away in the forest nearby, even infiltrating family events. Secondly, the woman seeks integration but battles rehabilitation. She tries to settle back into normal life alongside her sister and her husband, but the habits the cult has ingrained in her are too deviant for the couple’s tolerance.
The young woman, Martha, is also learning to be independent. We know little of her story before she joined the cult, but it is clear that she has been led astray by the authority figures encountered in her life thus far. The cult is shown in flashbacks to employ rape, coercion, hunger, jealousy, rigid expectations, and a cavalier attitude towards those outside their circle, to dictate routine. Plenty of freedom on a rural homestead. Plenty of curtailment too.
Martha’s sister, Lucy, seems to be someone she trusts. Though Lucy and her husband Ted represent the only available avenue to escape the cult’s strong grasp over Martha’s waking life.
What is the actual story here? (Spoilers ahead.) Beneath the surface plot, Martha Marcy May Marlene is a gut-wrenching look at trauma and its hold on an individual’s psyche. The cult and its leader, Patrick, represent a wide range of trauma inflicted upon Martha. Patrick almost immediately renames her ‘Marcy May’, a label she accepts as her in-group identity. The members use tried and true methods of reward and punishment through different collective activities to indoctrinate Martha into her new life, combining educational activities with forced labor, or freedom from society with criminal acts. Patrick is the heart of this controlling enterprise, but he his veteran disciples do an excellent job of sustaining a climate of fear.
Trauma, it turns out, is a hard thing to escape. As mentioned above, the members follow Martha back to her sister’s place and terrorize her in different ways. They cannot accept her departure and expect her return; the leviathan under the waves pulling her back down into the ocean. Even when they are not physically in the vicinity, Martha sees them in her dreams, recalling the nights she was made a sexual object or the assaults she facilitated. The film is a literal manifestation of post-traumatic stress, the members attempting to paralyze the young woman within a psychological prison.
Though she fights back and we see her slowly improving, we know the cult, and her trauma, will never truly be fled. The difficulties experienced in trying to make a ‘home’ of her sister’s vacation spot, a representation of high society that is not welcoming, exacerbate her symptoms. It is precisely the type of home she helped her cult peers burgle on numerous occasions, a target of so many of their anxieties.
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The film’s ending is quite a jarring lurch. The still oblivious Lucy and Ted encounter a cult member running across the road to stop their car in its tracks. The member hops in a roadside vehicle and follows them; this entire time, Martha sits in their back seat, petrified of what will happen next. Like so many other moments in the film, we hear much of what is happening around her, as the camera focuses on Martha’s expressions. A lesser actor may not have been able to relay the seriousness of each situation and the charged nature of a stoic individual’s inner emotions, but Elizabeth Olsen is brilliant in this role.
This film is filled with standout scenes, so I must provide an honorable mention to a tense encounter between Martha and a bartender at a garden party hosted by Lucy and Ted. It is a deft display of what it means to be ‘triggered’ in a clinical sense – a seemingly innocuous set of events that result in our protagonist rapidly breaking down.
Credit: This is That Productions/ Borderline Films
But there is another, much earlier, which I absolutely love. Everything from its framing, to the filters employed, to the subtle delivery of each line.
The membership is gathered under a shelter outdoors and casually strumming away at various instruments. One of the young men finishes performing a song and the group applauds. His composition is appreciated by Patrick, who steps up and seats himself on the chair, surrounded by the collective on the ground around him. A silence falls as he begins his ditty, titling it ‘Marcy’s Song’. How a filmmaker constructs shots in a scene like this are crucial to the impact of a film, and Durkin hits this one out of the park.
The refrain is a weighty “She’s just a picture”. The song is an eerie mini-dream in the flashback sequence. As Patrick’s words float like feathers in the air, the camera pans in on Martha, who is undertaking her re-identification as ‘Marcy May’. As her three-dimensional reality is reduced to two dimensions, a grainy filter interprets her expression to the audience. In this moment, as in the song, our protagonist has become an image. The song’s lyrics are both telling of the transformation and of the cult environment. Careful watchers will notice the same extra-grainy filters during other, pivotal moments in the film. All a reminder of what has been taken away from the membership’s individuality within this particular setting.
Below is an extended version of the song sung in the film. John Hawkes, who plays the cult patriarch Patrick, is a magnetic presence.
THE EMPTY MAN
“Distractions rob us of focus. Technology robs us of memory. Repetition robs us of comprehension.
You know the child’s game? If you say your name enough times, it becomes gibberish? That holds true for whole concepts – even entire bodies of thought. For example, take Nietzsche’s old line, ‘If you stare into the abyss, it also stares into you.’ Right? Ha, well, that has been rendered meaningless through repetition. It’s a… refrigerator magnet. It’s a cliché. It’s harmless.
When was the last time you really thought about that. What is an abyss? And if you stare into it, why? What about it calls to you? If it stares into you, it stands to reason something in you must also be calling to it. And that, my friend, is anything but harmless. If you really reflect on it. So the question becomes: if profound meaning can be robbed of something by so simple a task as repetition, which is more fundamental? Which is more true? Your name, or the gibberish?”
If you had to choose one of these films to watch without any foreknowledge of the plot or themes, 2020’s The Empty Man would be it. Best to go in blind and absorb its unending intricacies. It flew under the radar outside of the world of horror enthusiasts or those of us who listen to the occasional film podcast, but this is a hidden gem released during worldwide Covid lockdowns which I am certain will be revisited in favorable light in future years.
This movie’s imagery transcends what you usually find in genre films. There are through-threads relating to tulpas, bridges, youth, isolation, suicide, memory, thought construction, and many philosophical subjects. These threads are also held aloft by very creepy and unsettling iconography. Cinematographically speaking, the film is gorgeous – horrors and thrillers lit by the dimmest of lights rarely look this fleshed out. Writer-director David Prior is a long-time student of David Finch, and it shows. The Empty Man is an atmospheric feast excelling in communicating the sinister.
The prologue is its own captivating short film, extending over the first 22 minutes of the runtime | Credit: Boom! Studios/ Out of Africa
In all honesty, it would be an error to share a premise for this film, because there are technically four or five. It does sometimes feel like many movies packed into one. And this is also marginally a ‘cult film’ as I had defined initially. True, the ‘cult’ of the titular Empty Man may technically qualify, but it is far more the overlapping themes and other takeaways that make this a strong complement to the others on this list. The basic idea that the audience is provided with is this: a mysterious spirit referred to as the Empty Man has been awakened. The spirit connects telepathically with its victims and followers. It terrorizes the former and forces them to commit suicide, while collecting the latter for some unnamed mission. Throughout the course of the film, the Empty Man is explained as everything from an urban legend used to scare teenagers, to a cult leader at the heart of many mysterious happenings. We also follow this vague threat from the eyes of a protagonist about whom we know very little. James, a former cop and detective, who takes the freelance case of a vanished teen as a favor to her mom.
The actual story, then, is also too unwieldy to convey here. This is a film that demands re-watching and I recognize not everyone is interested in cinema or horror to that degree. But if I am to highlight one thread to focus on, it would be isolation. (Spoilers ahead.) The protagonist is a strangely asocial type who we learn behaves this way because of guilt he carries relating to the death of his own young family. An individual who seems peripherally connected to plenty of people but retreats to his home, and his liquor cabinet, alone on most days. The way the film paints his portrait is also strange. He is drawn to each story shared with him by victims and followers of the Empty Man, not just through his own interest (genuine no matter how feigned it appears), but also seemingly arbitrary correlations with his own life.
James’s isolation is mirrored in the victims of the Empty Man. And as confused as he is by the cult followers, they treat him like a regular acquaintance, which introduces a further layer of intrigue. Why are they sharing so much with this random private eye? What about this fairly boring loner is so captivating? In evaluating his reservedness and reticence, the viewer may be able to discern that the depth of the emptiness he is feeling, deepened by many in his immediate circle and encouraged by seeming strangers, is key to his recruitment to the cause.
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Which brings us to the standout scene. Frequent viewers of smaller, independent horror films may be familiar with the always unexpected but always welcome Stephen Root cameo. Here is a general rule of thumb: when Stephen Root shows up, pay attention to what he says. He has so often played minor roles across genre films in order to deliver lines of great significance. Everything from his mumbled threats in 1999’s Office Space to a seminal interaction preceding the thrilling auction scene in 2017’s Get Out (as a blind art dealer, no less).
Root enters the frame about halfway through The Empty Man, as Arthur Parsons. He is delivering a lecture on behalf of a shadowy institute which James has been led to during the course of his investigation. The institute may hold the key to the cult’s ideologies and activities. Following his speech, filled with vague but grand proclamations, Arthur invites James to sit with him. He elucidates some of the cult’s critical fascinations. He speaks of Nietzsche, repetition, profundity, and meaning. In quick fashion, he is able to also share with us some of the theses of a couple of the other films on the list – when the emptiness finds you, what will you find in it?
Credit: Boom! Studios/ Out of Africa
This film is the only one of the five discussed in this post that dives into the supernatural proper, so the more left unsaid the better regarding its various conceits. Again – it will work for some and not for others. One thing I should mention before moving on – it is also hilarious. A horror narrative that makes room for regular insertions of well-placed levity. Yes, please.
THE MASTER
“I have never been to the pyramids, have you? And yet we know that they are there. Because learned men have told us so. […]
Mr. Moore, if I may, is there something frightening to you about The Cause’s travel into the past? What scares you so much about travelling into the past, sir? Are you afraid that we might discover that our past Has Been Reshapen? Perverted? And perhaps what we think we know of this world is false information. […]
There are dangers to travelling in and out of time as we understand it. But is not unlike travelling down a river, you see, you travel down the river, round the bend, and look back, and you cannot see around the bend, can you? But that does not mean it is not there, does it? But certain clubs would like us to think that a certain TRUTH, I say TRUTH, UNCOVERED, should stay hidden.”
We must end with the spectacular. For this rumination, in the form of 2012’s The Master. Ostensibly based on Scientology’s spread in post-WWII America, but about so much more. The cult in the film is an operative device for writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson. He uses the trappings of a cult and its members to take two charged characters from the society that has electrified them and bring their rapturous mentor-mentee relationship into intimate settings. Within these spaces, they are empowered to act out their desires, influence others, impose opposing impulses, and engage in a volatile relationship.
The premise: Freddie Quell, a soldier who is seen as a degenerate by most he encounters, and who lacks healthy control of his baser urgers, finds himself in the company of Lancaster Dodd. The latter is the self-aggrandizing head of a new religious movement calling themselves ‘The Cause’. Having stowed himself away on Dodd’s boat, Quell is welcomed by Dodd due to his ability to concoct strong alcoholic solutions and his freewheeling air. Dodd protects Freddie, a perennial reject, giving him sustenance, shelter, and a purpose. Freddie wavers between belief and disbelief in the Cause’s teachings, but he is largely on board as the people around him accept him despite his shortcomings.
As you can tell, many aforementioned themes regarding the draw of cult life emerge here as well. A search for community, structure, routine, and meaning. An escape from social chaos, hate, rules, and hopelessness.
But this time, the cult and its teachings are entirely within the backdrop. The actual story – the crux of the action – is within the numerous exchanges between Dodd and Quell. (Spoilers ahead.) The two leads step into and out of rooms with each other, having intense confrontations, feeding each other’s slow deterioration as outside pressures consistently pierce their fragile bubbles. Dodd fights skeptics, criminal charges, doubt amongst his ranks, and his own penchant for alcohol. Quell meanwhile is a sexual deviant who cannot, ironically, quell his urges and violent outbursts. He has suffered trauma as a soldier during the war, struggles to maintain focus in basic professional settings, and comes across as puerile in almost every way. Quell’s commitment to the Cause and its members builds as quickly as it diminishes. All it takes is lack of support from his benefactor or a dismissive statement on his own behavior, and Quell, ever the hand-biting mutt, pounces on those around him.
Dodd and Quell share many addictions – the Cause, alcohol, sex, power over others (mental, in the case of Dodd, and physical superiority for Quell), and loyalty to each other. Their coupling is dangerous for them both. This is acknowledged by Dodd near the end of the film, when he admits he is ‘giving up’ Quell in order to move forwards with his life. Quell, meanwhile, chooses to relinquish the Cause to continue partaking in abusive behaviors. He uses the cult’s questioning techniques in the last encounter we see on the screen, as a way to ingratiate himself to his sexual partner. It is now just another way for him to manipulate others to get what he wants.
Credit: JoAnne Sellar Productions/ Ghoulardi Film Company/ Annapurna Pictures
Many critics and commentators have pointed to Dodd and Quell’s relationship as homoerotic or queer. In a nod to this thesis, Anderson has them share a smoke after an intense question-and-answer session diving into Quell’s past. A bit on the nose, PTA. This valid interpretation is given even more weight when considering the treatment of non-binary romance in highly rigid post-war USA. Both characters enjoy a toxic connection complicated (perhaps) by physical desires. Dodd’s wife sexually placates her husband as a way to implore him to refocus on his enterprise, rather than his budding relationship with Quell. Freddie has no other connections; as Dodd’s wishes go, so do Freddie’s fortunes.
This is a movie replete with astounding scenes. I will not discuss or expand on the performances, but every single one is remarkable. One scene that displays a microcosm of so many emotions and strings wielded throughout the film is Dodd’s arrest, Quell’s reaction, and their subsequent ‘fight’ in prison. It represents the zenith of what this story captures. I will save you the description:
And allow me to cheat by sharing another, simply because it is available (for now):
Dodd interrupts the challenge by issuing his own in the form of a mirror. We are not frightened, you are. We are not ignorant, you are. We are not the powerful, you are. Our quest is as pure as yours.
In the following section of The Master, Dodd’s wife deliberates aloud:
“The only way to defend ourselves is to attack. If we don’t do that, we will lose every battle we are engaged in. We will never dominate our environment the way we should unless we attack!”
This is the perceived habitat that the Cause occupies. It is a cult-eat-cult world out there. Authority is demanded, wrested and bought, not earned or shared. Do we have what it takes to end up on top?
– / – / –
Concluding Comments
It is unfortunate that so many people tend to shy away from certain genres. in an age where increasing budgets seemingly have a direct correlation to decreasing percentages of original ideas being supported, smaller independent films, particularly in the psychological thriller and horror genres, have plenty of exceptional offerings.
Four of the five films above are entirely original creations (The Empty Man is based on a graphic novel). Four of the five films discussed above are also classified as psychological thrillers, while The Empty Man sits more comfortably in the horror genre. However, all five reflect a truer horror than that explored in most scary movies – that which can actually happen. The ability of movements that erode freedoms and self-worth to overtake, slowly and deliberately, each corner of existence, until it is too late to stop them. While some elements in these films seem fantastical, they are each based on realities we face quite regularly.
We live with information overload and sometimes the comforting, simpler answers to overwhelming problems offer a gateway easier to step through. All five movies also cover social isolation, something each of us embedded in a digital world are still coming to terms with. The feeling of loneliness that does not leave no matter how many people are in the room.
Finally, it is important not to forget the scientific method’s most humbling revelation on the human condition: we are the most flawed variable in better understanding our surroundings and the greater truths of this world. Our credulity matters because we carry lots of evolutionary baggage. And the variety of our experience can be carefully manipulated without reliance on sophisticated psychology. We frequently construct boxes of beliefs that act as effective traps; we will gladly cage ourselves into discrimination, bigotry, ignorance, etc. in search of happiness and comfort from all sorts of unfamiliar things.
Remember that the next time someone promises you everything. The fine line between ‘incredible’ and ‘not credible’ cannot be discerned hastily. Everything and everyone you hold dear now depends on it.