Cults and New Religious Movements in Literature and Popular Culture - Film

Film

  • The 1965 British film Help! directed by Richard Lester, starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, features a fictionalized version of the Indian criminal cult the Thugees as villains.
  • The 1971 Indian film Hare Rama Hare Krishna centers around the hippie invasion of Kathmandu, Nepal. The film also features the Hindi hit song "Dum Maro Dum", which includes the chant "Hare Krishna Hare Ram".
  • The 1981 Canadian film Ticket to Heaven portrays a young man who joins a cult (based loosely on the Unification Church); his family subsequently kidnaps him for deprogramming.
  • The 1984 American film "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" features a cult group inspired by the real-life Thuggees. In the film they perform ritualistic sacrifices of human beings via a fiery lava pit and are worshipers of the Sankara Stones, believed to contain hidden mystical powers.
  • The 1984 American film Children of the Corn (1984 film) based upon the short story by Stephen King, tells the story of a demonic entity referred to as "He Who Walks Behind The Rows" which entices the cult children of the town to ritualistically murder all the adults to ensure a successful corn harvest.
  • The 1985 American film Witness is a crime-thriller, directed by Peter Weir and starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis It is set among the Amish sect of Pennsylvania and partly deals with their values and their relationships with larger society.
  • The 1992 American film Malcolm X is a biographical motion picture about the Muslim-American figure Malcolm X, including his membership in the Nation of Islam. It was co-written, co-produced, and directed by Spike Lee. It stars Denzel Washington.
  • The 1999 Australian film Holy Smoke! features Kate Winslet as a traveler newly returned from India, where she fell under the spell of a religious guru. Harvey Keitel plays the deprogrammer with whom she gets involved.
  • The 2011 American film Red State was based on the Westboro Baptist Church cult.
  • The 2011 American film Martha Marcy May Marlene follows Martha (played by Elizabeth Olsen) as she tries to readjust into society after escaping an abusive cult.

Read more about this topic:  Cults And New Religious Movements In Literature And Popular Culture

Famous quotes containing the word film:

    “Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.”
    —Ingmar Bergman (b. 1918)

    “Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
    —David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)

    “This film is apparently meaningless, but if it has any meaning it is doubtless objectionable.”
    —British Board Of Film Censors. Quoted in Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion (1984)