A psychological study of the horrors of fundamentalist indoctrination. It's a competent, well mounted, and professional looking film for a low-budget effort.
The movie delivers some creepy moments and a scene or two that scares (in the Horror movie method). But it is not a slasher, gore, or monster movie.
One gets the impression that the anti-religious elements are soft-peddled somewhat. Could the Writer/Director still be suffering from a real-life repression of his feelings ("based on true events" says the credits).
The villainous brain-washers are portrayed as good-natured, sincere, folks doing God's work and don't have any real threat or diabolical intent. Isn't that the "horror" of it all? The harm and damage done by this type of closed-minded inculcation of young people.
One gets the feeling that the reality is that these people, deep in their souls, know exactly what they are doing and are nothing more than evil, power-mad "monks" and it is disturbing that so many people fall for it. That is truly scary.
The movie delivers some creepy moments and a scene or two that scares (in the Horror movie method). But it is not a slasher, gore, or monster movie.
One gets the impression that the anti-religious elements are soft-peddled somewhat. Could the Writer/Director still be suffering from a real-life repression of his feelings ("based on true events" says the credits).
The villainous brain-washers are portrayed as good-natured, sincere, folks doing God's work and don't have any real threat or diabolical intent. Isn't that the "horror" of it all? The harm and damage done by this type of closed-minded inculcation of young people.
One gets the feeling that the reality is that these people, deep in their souls, know exactly what they are doing and are nothing more than evil, power-mad "monks" and it is disturbing that so many people fall for it. That is truly scary.