Holy Hell (2016)

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  ScreenZealots

  4 / 10

  The unprecedented access to the inner workings of a cult is the biggest strength of this documentary, but even all of that behind the scenes footage couldn’t save “Holy Hell” for me.
  
  Maybe it’s because director Will Allen was a member of the cult himself and couldn’t distance himself from the subject, but I felt like there were so many missed opportunities to examine some deeper issues about the psyche of cults and religion. It’s hard for me to understand how people can be so coerced into following some self-proclaimed guru and even more shocking that some members were enduring such horrible sexual and mental abuse but nobody cried wolf.
  
  The film’s big finale, centering around the eventual disbanding of the cult and a subsequent confrontation of a former member and the leader in Hawaii, is deeply unsatisfying.
  
  This is a mildly interesting documentary that sadly fizzles out all too quickly.
  
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