This is another movie I've wanted to see for years that I promised myself I'd watch this year for the challenge. It came out the year I was born and I've heard about it off and on over the years. It's a Wes Craven movie, and I love him, so I was fairly certain I'd love this movie too (here's hoping, at least).
So this movie is about a small country town full of religious extremists who have very strong beliefs about how things should be done, how life should be lived, sin, and death. When friends come to visit a recent widow, they discover that she's terrified of the leader of this religious sect, played by Ernest Borgnine. Murders start happening in a town near this strange religious community, and residents are afraid of being the next to die.
Michael Berryman is in this movie too. He was in Craven's classic "The Hills have Eyes," and he does well playing big, menacing creepy guys. Ernest Borgnine is really creepy as the leader of the paranoid religious sect. It's freaky as hell seeing he and his followers lurking around in the shadows, particularly when they watch someone being buried in a local cemetary. Dude, I'd be moving as far away from those weirdos as I could. Brr.
So I don't really understand why the women don't just leave. After a few murders, living out in the boonies where the police won't get to you in time to help, and with creepy religious neighbors that worship a screwed up, violent version of God...I get standing your ground and not letting the bad guys win and drive you away from your home, but I would be out of there if I could go, and her friends would certainly give her a place to stay if she asked, so it's not like money is an object. I just don't get why she didn't leave, especially after the snake incident.
Religious cults like this really piss me off. I worship God too, but the super violent God that tells them to abuse people in front of the congregation during a church service? I'll take a hard pass on that crap, thanks. This movie taps into a lot of fears, especially the fear of divine retribution from a murderous god who likes to torture people, and a religious cult that thinks they have to do the bidding of that God. Add in the murders ratcheting up the tension, and the isolated, rural setting where no one can hear you scream, and this movie is extra horrifying. I definitely liked it.
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