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To me, this movie is perfection.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Yes, before Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack, Sept. 11 was somewhat known by a few historians as the date, where the Mountain Meadows Massacre took place on Sept. 11, 1857 by another fanatic religionists group. The film, September Dawn directed by Christopher Cain tells the story how a group of religious intolerance Mormons end up attacking the Baker-Fancher wagon train. The wagon train was passing by Mormon's Utah territory on their way to California when they were attack. It's a barely known historic event, even those who study American history, might not have heard of it. The question of whether the attack was carried out by local Paiute Indians or by a renegade sect of the Mormon Church remains unresolved to this day. The reason why the real life events might have not been told is because the modern Mormon organization doesn't want to share light of this tragic time in their early history. Mormons are just outright made to be evil in this film to the point, it seem anti-Mormonism propaganda. I really doubt, every Mormon went along with this massacre plot. It seem really over the top one dimensional and unbelievable theatrical acting out to make early Mormons look like a crazy cult. It is saved to say, September Dawn was not produced with the support of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Without anybody really talking about the real life event, there was very little fanfare for a film like this being made. Not a lot of people saw this, because first off, they had no clue what it was about, and second off, it's a part of history most people wouldn't want to enjoy watching on the big screen. It's tragedy without a positive outcome. It's depressing. The movie is a western disaster of a film that is tragedy cliché, it hurts the film. September Dawn follow too much to the Romeo and Juliet love tragedy story by having the love interests being from two different groups about to rip into each other. One is Johnathan Samuelson (Trent Ford), the son of an extremist Bishop Jacob Samuelson (Jon Voight) who fall in love with a 'gentile' minister's daughter, Emily Hudson (Tamara Hope). His father, Jacob become convinced that the gentile are out to kill all the Mormons, and so he wanted to take first action. He negotiates with the Paiute tribe to executed Emily's people. The movie tries to make the film watchable, I give them that. But, adding a love story to it, wasn't going to help one bit. By adding a fictional love story against a controversial historical interpretation of the tragedy event makes the audience focus more on the lovers than the victims of the crime. I hardly remember anybody else in the Wagon train besides the Hudson family. In real life, the Hudson's family didn't really shown up in Utah. They left the wagon trail way before the massacre. While the characters of the Samuelson's family are fictional characters, it took away so much from the real life Mormons. I had no idea who was telling this film. The film felt lost in time as it jump around way too much in history, as it start out with in 1877 as Utah governor Brigham Young (Terence Stamp) presents his side of the story of the events of 1857. The narrative then returns to 20 years before, and starts with Jacob's story. We get flashbacks of how the Mormons came to be with Joseph Smith (Dean Cain) through Jacob. Cut back to the present, enter Johnathan's story, and back to Jacob, then to Jonathan. Honestly, whom are we supposed to follow here? Why even, start a film with Brigham Young when most of the film isn't about him? Why not, start the movie with Jacob or better yet, his son, Jonathan? This movie would have work better, if it was produce as a documentary, not a live action piece melodrama. The melodrama doesn't match the history. The movie acts like Joseph Smith was murder in Missouri, when in true life, he did in a jail-house in Illinois. Missouri had little to do with Joseph Smith's killing when you think about it. Plus, all the wagon folks were from Arkansas. If any, the movie should have shown that the massacre could be vengeance against the people of Arkansas for the death of Parley Pratt who was recently murdered in Arkansas at the time, not Joseph Smith. The acting was alright for the most part, but Terrence Stamp really mess it up. Brigham Young sound like a deep British accent guy. The film is controversial, representing the view that Brigham Young had a direct role in the massacre, while the LDS Church maintains that historical evidence shows that Brigham Young did not authorize the massacre. The movie tries to say that the massacre was because of blood atonement. Anyone who knows anything about blood atonement in early Utah know it referred to sinful Mormons, not gentiles. Still, the Mormons were not actually killing each other to atone for their sins. The violence is pretty bad, but the blood and gore is fake looking to be too graphic. A good example of this is the removed scrotum scene. If you concerned with nudity. It's pretty tamed. The shaky camera is ugly. I don't know how many people want to see a movie where a lot of children get shot and killed in slow motion shaky cam. Overall: the movie gives you a sour taste with such a disappointing ending, inaccurate, and predictable propaganda-like plot. The only good I see coming from it is greater attention for the massacre, but even then the film mess that up. If you want to learn about the massacre then read the books Juanita Brooks, Will Bagley, and Ronald Walker. I cannot recommend watching this film

first off, this is by far a bigger tragedy than the World Trade Center,, this is another 9-11 tragedy 144 years ago. Jon Voight was excellent In this movie,, terrace stamp delivers a knockout performance as Brigham Young.. a stage coach and hundreds of people are viciously attacked and taken down beaten and murdered by Brigham Young's henchman. to this day the Mormon's take no responsibility for what happened,, and only one man has ever paid the price for his actions, back then and still today the Mormon's have no trust for the government, Christians. I guess it came down to one of their own being held by Missouri, and then somehow nothing happened, so they felt wronged,, but come on seriously to murder all of those people,, after tricking them, saying to them yeah sure go ahead and camp in those field,, come across to Utah, they were lambs sent to the slaughter,, excellent thought provoking movie which is really sad but informative.

This is the very definition of a mediocre film—it's a mix of solid performances (e.g., Jon Voigt, who seems to have cornered the market on cold, unflinching, ruthless elder statesmen/scary old white dude roles), interesting depictions of little-known historical events (like the Mountain Meadows massacre perpetrated by the Mormons), a misguided Romeo-and-Juliet style star-crossed lovers subplot (Mormon scion falls passionately in love with a young gentile woman—in the space of a week), and some of the lousiest writing ever to be foisted upon professional actors. I do credit the film for treating one of the most appalling events in the history of any religion with an appropriate mix of horror and detachment and for making a genuine effort to provide a dramatic context for the senseless slaughter of innocent pioneers at the hands of maniacal Mormon Church elders (Brigham Young among them). Other parts of the film just make very little sense, dramatically or historically—why waste 20 minutes of screen time depicting the Mormon scion's uncanny ability to "break" an ornery stallion? Why cast Dean Cain (yes, the Superman of "Lois and Clark") as Joseph Smith? (He's on screen very briefly but long enough to make you scoff at the awful casting choice.) So ultimately this film is a very mixed bag—recommended only for those who have a genuine curiosity about Mormon history.

We need more movies like this! When is Hollywood going to be brave enough to expose radical Islam the way they have exposed the radical Mormons of the late 1850's?????????????????????????? The acting is amazing. The cinematography is sweeping. The pacing, editing, sound and productions values are all first rate. The vistas are amazing. The slaughter of innocent woman and children is disgusting. The act of the Mormon leadership at this time unforgivable. The horror unreal. The blood thirst scary. The movie is almost a horror movie. But it's not.It's a true story.And that is REALLY FRIGHTENING. Oh the horror.