Watch Guyana: Crime of the Century For Free

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979) ** (out of 4)Reverend James Johnson (Stuart Whitman) leads his church worshipers into the jungles of Guyana in South America where his cult begins to reach the views he had in plan. The only problem is politician Congressman Leo Ryan (Gene Berry) who sees something wrong with this group but before anything can be done tragedy strikes. GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED was the first attempt at telling the tragic story of Jim Jones and his church members, which led to a mass suicide in Jonestowan. This film comes from director Rene Cardona Jr. who also had his hand involved in other "true story" films like SURVIVE and THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE. This film here was released in America in a cut version, which added narration but I viewed the uncut version that clocked in at 115-minutes. I can't comment on the American version but I will say that this here appears to be a little bit better. Having read reviews of both, it's clear this film is hated by most and many violently attack it for exploiting the real people by trying to make a quick buck.I understand where people would see this as exploitation but the film itself really isn't as bad as many make it out to be and not nearly as graphic as its reputation. In fact, for a film that has the reputation of being an exploitation movie, I'd say this is incredibly tame. Yes, there are scenes of torture but none of them are graphic and in fact they're less graphic than something you'd see in a PG-13 movie of today. The mass suicide at the end really just shows people getting shot or falling to the ground. Again, nothing too graphic. The attacks about the vile nature of the movie isn't from anything we see on the screen but I think it comes from people simply protesting that a "cheap" movie was made about such a tragic event.As for the film itself, I'd be lying if I called it good. There's no question that the entire film has a very rushed feel to it. There's also no question that Cardona just wanted to get anything on the screen no matter if it was the truth, a lie or somewhere in between. The story structure is what really kills the movie because the first time we see Jones (named Johnson here) he's already a raving maniac so it's hard to believe that, by looking at him, anyone would follow him into a jungle. Had the film showed whatever character he had to talk people into following him then I think it would have paid off a lot better instead of having him be a maniac throughout. The film, in its uncut form, also runs a bit too long with too many repeat scenes of Jones just rambling.There are some good moments in the film that are often overlooked and this includes the final twenty-five or so minutes once the Congressman arrives on the scene with the media. The final moments of the story are quite entertaining, although many of the death scenes are handled so poorly that it was hard to get any real impact from them. Another good thing was the performance of Whitman. I thought he was actually quite believable in the role and it's too bad he didn't get to play this character with a better screenplay. Berry was also good in his supporting role and there's never a bad time when you get to watch Joseph Cotten and John Ireland.GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED has been overshadowed by other, more graphic films from the director as well as a made-for-TV movie that followed. Still, on its own terms, the movie isn't nearly as awful as its made out to be. Who knows. Had the director actually taken his time with the material and had a better screenplay, it had the elements for something better.

A real mess coproduced by México, Spain, Panamá and the U.S., done by the Cardonas with the same sensationalism of other 1970s "films", as "El triángulo de las Bermudas", "¡Tintorera!" and a few others that father and son signed together or separatedly. Everybody spoke their lines in their native languages, many tried to speak English for the "international market"... and were indeed recorded, but finally dubbed for the American version. It is awful in any version. Little was left (I can only guess) of the real facts that made headlines on newspapers. All I can remember now is Stuart Whitman in a blood-red shirt, playing the head of the cult, and all those old familiar faces, probably making fun of what they were doing in Acapulco for a few dollars...

#Slight Spoilers# Based on the true story of the late Reverand Jim Jones who's paranoid obsession of an impending nuclear holocaust as well as him and his followers, of the People's Temple in San Francisco, being rounded up and put in concentration camps lead to the biggest mass-suicide in recorded history in the hot steaming and snake-infested jungles of Guyana back on November 18-19 1978.The entire event is told to us, off-camera, by a 24 year-old survivor of the Johnsontown massacre in the movie "Guyana Cult of the Damned". The movie goes back to a lawsuit against the People's Temple's founder Reverand James Johnson, Stuart Whitman, by the father of one of his followers who was "accidently" killed when he quit being a member of the Temple. California Congressman Lee O'Brian, Gene Barry, organizes a special task force that travels down to Guyana where Johnson has built a town for his some 3,000 followers to see if the accusations of torture humiliation and even murder of some of his followers against Reverand James Johnson are true.James Johnson over the years has gone from preaching the words and teaching of Jesus Christ to becoming both a dye in the wool Marxist/Socialist even secretly joined the American Communist Party. Johnson has also become dependent on proscription drugs and the drugs were slowly killing him. That may well have been the reason for his state of mind in the two years that lead up to his grand exit, together with over 900 loyal and not so loyal followers,on that infamous "White Night" in November.Life was hell in Johnsontwon with James Johnson ruling it with an iron fist and having anyone who disobeyed his orders or will tortured and humiliated in view of all the other Johnsontown members. In one case when a young couple were caught making love in the woods they were made to be forced to have sex, or other men of Johnsontown have sex with them, with male members of Johnsontown in full views of the entire Johnsontown community including the very young children!When Congressman O'Brian came to Johnsontown to investigate the charges against Johnson all hell broke loose with scores of Johnsontown residents wanting to leave with him. Johnson himself already suffering from advanced brain and stomach cancer went berserk and ordered his men to ambush Congressman O'Brian before he, and the defectors of Jonsontown, the newsman and cameramen left Guyana brutally massacred most of them including Congressman O'Brian.With the news of O'Brian and his fellow American citizens murdered Johnson got his followers ready for the big night that he's been planning and rehearsing for years the terrifying "White Night". With his faithful physician Doctor Gary Shaw, Bradford Dillman, mixing the deadly cyanide into a giant vat of fruit-punch Johnson had, and forced, his followers to drink it. Some 1,000 people in Johnsontown died before the US, and Guyanan, military could get there to save them from this murderous madman. When they finally got there, Johnsontown, the rescue squads found to their, and the worlds, shock and horror the biggest organized mass murder, by suicide, in human history had already happened. Even though Johnson's wife of 27 years Marilyn, Ericka Carlsson, and one of his young children took a drink of the death fruit-punch potion right in front of him thus going immediately into painful death-rattlings convolutions and dying the good Reverand Johnson, coward that he was, refrained from taking a drink and was shot,in the neck, instead by one of his loyal henchmen.Shocking but true story about madness and murder with James Johnson using the most naive of people who thought that he was a kind noble and God-like man. Instead the crazed and drug addicted James Johnson sent them and their families, even their infant children, to a hell not heaven on earth like he had promised them. In the end Johnson destroyed everything good, if there was any, that he did in his life making him one of the most evil, and God-less, men that ever walked the face of the earth. For some strange and ironic reason James Jonhson had a placard over his throne, or seat of power, at Johnsontown quoting the Spanish philosopher George Santanya stating " Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to relive it". Let's hope that we and the world learned from the evil deeds and actions of James Johnson aka Jim Jones and will always remember what he did and stood for and see to it, like Santayana's famous quote, that we never forget and never live to see or let it, or him, ever happen again.

I have to admit that ever since I first heard about this cult I've been terribly interested in knowing just what the tag line of the movie implies that this movie tells you: The Truth Behind the most shocking crime of the century. This movie did everything but fulfill its' promise.We get introduced to the cult in an opening scene with Reverend James Johnson, the leader of the cult, preaching in a church. He explains that they have gotten a piece of land by the "friendly socialists" in Guyana where they will establish a religious community. This is a key sentence, because the connection between Johnson and socialism becomes established over and over again. For example, in the "Johnsontown agricultural project", they listen to a woman that is trying to teach them Russian while they are working. Later in the movie, the U.S. Ambassador calls Johnson a socialist.I think that the movie was made too soon after the incident to have any perspective. I was bewildered by the ignorance of the director that actually believed he could get any real insight in the event when not even a year had passed since! He tried and failed miserably, as far as I'm concerned. This movie is not even trying to tell the truth. The director is making almost desperate efforts to draw parallels between "suicide cults" and "socialists" using the infamous "guilt by association" method. I think that this is a very interesting movie if you watch it from that perspective - and bear in mind the echoes of the cold war. If you're trying to get to know what happened - look elsewhere.