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Book Review: Cult Cinema: A Personal Exploration of Sects, Brainwashing, and Bad Religion in Film and Television by Howard David Ingham

cover art for Cult Cinema by Howard David Ingham

Cult Cinema: A Personal Exploration of Sects, Brainwashing and Bad Religion in Film and Television by Howard David Ingham

Room 207 Press, 2020

ISBN-13: 9781684055982

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition ( Amazon.com )

 

 

Howard David Ingham follows up We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror with Cult Cinema: A Personal Exploration of Sects, Brainwashing and Bad Religion in Film and Television. In this book, Ingham posits that religious extremism has dogged humanity’s heels from the formation of Christianity up to the current era. Ingham does not solely focus on horror, looking at other genre sources such as situational comedy, drama, and more. The author looks at why and how people join abusive religious groups, the process of and what it means to brainwash, and at times eventual escape. He frames his book in terms of his personal experience belonging to the evangelical Christian church. Ingham’s time in this group gives Ingham’s analysis a firsthand account of what occurs with cults and cultish behavior. Ingham provides a look into what makes the cult “work”, or not. Just as fair warning from Ingham, and myself, if you are one to shy away from material regarding abuse in a myriad of forms, including child abuse, sexual abuse, rape, and others, avoid this one. However, if those sensitive topics are not triggering for you and you are interested in religious cults, carry on reading this review (and, of course, consider picking up this book).

 

In the first chapter, “God Only Knows What You’re Missing”, Ingham frames their conversion to evangelical Christianity with a discussion of their experience at a Polyphonic Spree concert in 2003 that felt like a religious experience, and how even an ardent sceptic can be converted in the film The Sound of My Voice. The second chapter, “The Opposite of Brainwashing”, begins with a discussion of four stages of conversion and subsequent brainwashing and the Moonies. All of this leads to a further discussion on cult deprogrammers. Films include Ticket to Heaven, Split Image, Holy Smoke, and Faults to show different applications and results of brainwashing and subsequent deprogramming. In chapter three, “Exiles” Ingham writes about how difficult it is to leave extreme religious groups, analyzing The Passion of Darkly Noon, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and The Endless. “The Atrocity Tour” covers the Big Ones. A book on cult activity would not be complete without mentioning the big events: Jonestown, the siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, the Heaven’s Gates’ mass suicide, Aum Shinrikyo’s attacks on the Tokyo subway, and the Manson family murders are presented. Ingham covers film and television including Manson Family Vacation, Charlie Says, Mandy, The Sacrament, Red State, and American Horror Story: Cult. In chapter 5, “Live Together or Die Alone” Ingham describes the fictional popular culture theme of what they call the “Pagan Village Conspiracy,” emphasizing that there is no such thing in the real world of cults. The Wicker Man, Kill List, Midsommar, and Doomsday are the films in which this theme is strong. The Church of Scientology is the focus of chapter 6, titled “Clear”. Ingham looks at The Master and The Path for this section.

 

“You Can Be a Person by Being A Person”, chapter 7, focuses on cults that don’t necessarily have a religious component, but have more of a philosophical and sociopolitical center, such as fascist groups. Films Ingham includes in this chapter include Seven Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss by Passing through the Gateway Chosen by the Holy Storsh, Safe, The Invitation, and Fight Club. The latter is explored at length in this chapter. In the eighth chapter, “Sects Education”: Ingham discusses different sects of Christianity, focusing on Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons extensively, looking at the films Apostasy, The Children Act, Son of Rambow, September Dawn, and Gentlemen Broncos. “Praise Be to He” presents an extensive discussion of American conservative evangelical Christianity. Ingham writes at length of their time as an evangelical, discussing the prosperity gospel, gay conversion therapy, what it is like to attend Christian conventions, and more. Ingham uses media such as The Righteous Gemstones, Don Verdean, But I’m a Cheerleader, and The Miseducation of Cameron Post to frame their discussion.

 

In the closing chapter, “Chastity, Poverty, Obedience, Pain”, Ingham tells the story of Father Stephen, the chaplain at their secondary school. He mentions the “cloistered divine” in Catholic circles, and looks at films including The Magdalene Sisters, Black Narcissus, The Devils, Mother Joan of the Angels, Flavia the Heretic, and Martyrs.

 

The book includes an index of film and television programs the author discussed in the book.

 

Original versions of many of the essays in this book were written between January 2017 and December 2020, and were published by Room 207 Press. Highly recommended.

Contains: spoilers

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

Posted on October 3, 2021 by , Reply

Book Links: Stoker Awards 2018 Final Ballot for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Well, we’ve come as close as we can to reviewing all the nominees in the category of Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction. We unfortunately were unable to acquire a copy of The Howling: Studies in the Horror Film by Lee Gambin. It looks like a gorgeous book, though, based on what I saw at the Centipede Press website. I encourage you to take a look, as it is difficult to acquire a copy.

Below are links to the reviews for the other nominees in the category of Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction.

 

Horror Express  by John Connolly

 

We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror  by Howard David Ingham, illustrated by Steven Horry

 

It’s Alive! Bringing Your Nightmares to Life  edited by Eugene Johnson and Joe Mynhardt

 

Uncovering Stranger Things: Essays on Eighties Nostalgia, Cynicism, and Innocence  edited by Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on May 9, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror by Howard David Ingham, illustrated by Steven Horry

We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror by Howard David Ingham, illustrated by Steven Horry

Room 207 Press, 2018

ISBN: 9781722748814

Available: Kindle, paperback

Full disclosure: We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror is Ingham’s authoritative (although he would probably cringe at me using that term) look at folk horror. Pagan conspiracies, witchfinders, dark fairy tales, and cult activity are only a few of the themes of the movies he presents.

Ingham lays out some guidelines to how he wrote this book. Entries are arranged by theme and not chronologically. He states that this is not meant to be used as a reference book, and there are plenty of spoilers throughout. The author uses various icons, designed and illustrated by Steven Horry, to indicate specific information for readers (a bony thumbs up indicates he enjoyed the film, a bloody knife indicates gore, a stop sign warns readers of more sensitive material such as rape, abuse, etc.). Ingham specifies that he makes use of content warnings as a means to inform the viewer and help them make an informed decision before they watch a film. The author also provides a synopsis of each film with autobiographical information, as a means to break down the piece at hand. Similar to Kier-La Janisse’s autobiographical topography, House of Psychotic Women, Ingham includes personal information in each section. So much content blended with the autobiographical information makes for a very long read, but also an interesting one. While he states in his introduction that his purpose is not to review the films, he does provide many of his personal opinions of the works discussed.

There are 16 total chapters in this book. Ingham covers folk horror from the Silent Era to modern film, and has an international scope. I won’t go into every chapter in this review, as it would be a weighty endeavor on both myself and the reader to parse out. However, I do have some favorite chapters. Ingham begins with what he calls “The Unholy Trinity (Plus One)”, which includes Curse of the Demon (based on an absolutely beautiful tale by M.R. James, whom the author discusses in multiple chapters), Witchfinder General (a favorite of mine, given that I adore Vincent Price), and The Wicker Man (starring another favourite of mine, Christopher Lee). The “plus one” Ingham includes in the chapter is Blood on Satan’s Claw, another film based on the work of M.R. James. In the second chapter, Ingham discusses folk horror on British television from the 1970s, such as Against the Crowd, selections from the Play for Today series (Robin Redbreast, Penda’s Fen, A Photograph, and Red Shift), Ghost Stories for Christmas, The Stone Tapes, and others. Particularly interesting in this chapter is the discussion of his own experience with class hierarchy and how he felt like an outsider.

For those of us who like our horror comedies (especially of the British variety), the author presents solid reasoning as to why shows like Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible, The League of Gentlemen, Look Around You, and Detectorists belong firmly in the folk horror genre. If you haven’t seen Inside No. 9, developed by the creative team behind The League of Gentlemen, go check it out. You won’t be disappointed. The last chapter, “The Revived”, discusses films such as The Wicker Tree, Kill List, Sightseers, A Field in England, The Witch: A New England Folk Tale, and others that have been created in the last decade.

The author includes an extensive index of films referred to in the text, which makes my horror film must-see list much longer. If you are new to folk horror, or just want to brush up on your favorite horror subgenre, I recommend picking this book up. I think the major criticism I have with this book is (and again, I read the advanced readers’ copy so some of this may have been picked up upon final edits), there is an excessive use of “and” at the beginning of many sentences, and a few sections could use a tighter edit. Otherwise I think this is a solid addition to a horror film collection. Recommended.

Contains: a lot of spoilers

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Editor’s note: We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2018 Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction.

Posted on May 4, 2019 by , 1 comment