GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED

In 1979, with the 900 bodies of Jonestown barely cold a year, Rene Cardona, Jr., maker of the Bermuda Triangle and shark tale Tintorera, let loose this cheapie exploiter out onto drive-ins and grindhouses. The film starts with a disclaimer stating that the names have been changed to protect the innocent, when obviously they merely were trying to keep from getting sued. The pseudonyms are so close to the real names that it’s just plain silly and fairly blatant—Congressman Ryan is now O’Brien, the Rev. Jim Jones is transformed into James Johnson, etc. The newspapers are even fake, too, --the San Francisco Post, anyone? Bad Jonestown joke- Question: Why don’t you hear many jokes about Jonestown? Answer: Because the punch lines are too damned long!
This is not the contemporary TV film, but it WAS made with the finest out of work TV actors Cardona could afford. Joseph Cotton earns another late-career exploitation movie paycheck as one of Johnson’s lawyers. Stuart Whitman, a likable actor from cult fave Night of the Lepus, seems miscast as Jones/Johnson. He’s not manic or charismatic enough, with just a passing physical resemblance. The Congressman’s aide Anna is Jennifer Ashley, who played a groupie in Phantom of the Paradise. She looks pretty and gets shot. Gene Barry, ruggedly handsome star of TV’s Bat Masterson, served well as Congressman O’Brien. (Barry appeared in War of the Worlds as the scientist who saves the world, and in real life was politically active, and happened to be with Robert Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when the Senator was assassinated.) A puffy Yvonne De Carlo Lilly (from The Munsters TV show) rounds out the name cast with a brief portrayal of Johnson’s liaison with the outside world.
The story’s depiction is actually fairly sober and not over the top, considering the real life tragedy. At the start of the film, a drugged defector’s murder by train is cleverly shown during and as a counterpart to Johnson’s speechifying about all the good deeds the church did in the community. He exhibits a map of the colony in Guyana. “It shall be called Johnsontown.” Later, Congressman O’Brien is hearing tales of child and human rights abuses in the camp, and investigates. We are introduced to several photographers and their families just so that we will feel bad later when they die. Under increasing pressure and inquiry, Johnson makes everyone write letters home telling how happy they are. Taking pictures, Johnson keeps reminding people to smile. Johnson isolates his followers by saying the U.S. will destroy them because, “The U.S. is afraid of interracial love.” He increasingly speaks of suicide as a revolutionary act.
The impending arrival of the outside world accelerates Johnson’s paranoia and the mass suicide rehearsals begin to increase as Johnson’s world is invaded and spins out of control. He tells the doctor to double up on the dose of stimulants in the food. The only food is rice after working 13 hours in the sun. Kids are caught stealing, and brought before the whole camp where their parents, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, are forced to recommend Punishment for them. Punishment means water torture and being buried in a snake pit. Tough love! A young couple are punished for selfish intimacy and the boy is told to “Perform the sex act” with a big black dude before the whole camp (thankfully not shown.) Other humiliations and trials occur.
Several gore scenes seem added for no reason—a suicide at the film’s beginning, the train track death, etc. But after these shocks, the film builds more slowly to its’ inevitable ending, and treats it in a matter of fact, but detailed manner. The practiced banality of people quietly and obediently lined up to drink the poison Kool-Aid has always creeped me out. Of course, some fight, cry and scream and try to run and have it forced down their throats. Mothers give it to their babies, the couple from earlier shares a cup, and lots of differing reactions are shown. You may be forced to confront your own voyeurism as you watch this, and wonder why it’s so intriguing. Would it be as interesting if it were not true? I Don’t think so, ghoul.
The lighting and camera placement is always well done and there’s some nice fluid camera movement, that keep the film looking professional even if the budget is a little raw. The mock-up of the camp looks real and contains obvious details like the famous “those who forget history…” sign. The 900 people seem suspiciously like 100, but I could be wrong.
Ashley had the pleasure to star in Inseminoid. Whitman went on to the Pia Zadora debacle Butterfly, but don’t feel sorry for Whitman, he invested wisely and was worth $100 million as of 1998. The prolific Cardona later did the Birds rip-off Beaks and the Indy Jones knock-off The Treasure of the Amazon. This film is also known as Guyana: Crime of The Century, or by it’s original Mexican title Guyana: El Crimen Del Siglo. Universal’s American version cut the original from 109 to 90 minutes, and added narration by a Jonestown survivor! The DVD re-issue by VCI Entertainment runs 115 minutes and has no narration, and several bits still seem to be cut, including the electric shocks to the genitals, for those few that were looking forward to that scene.

-Hysteric Eric