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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Cardona Does Johnsontown, 1 March 2006
5/10
Author: bensonmum2 from Tennessee

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

If you take a look at Rene Cardona Jr.'s credits, you'll quickly discover that he jumped on every bandwagon that passed by. Tintoera is his Jaws "inspired" film. Cyclone is his cash-in on the disaster movie boom. The Bermuda Triangle is his link to the unexplained mysteries craze of the 70s. And I'm sure you can find similarities between Cardona's The Treasure of the Amazon and either a Hollywood movie like Romancing the Stone or a watered-down Italian cannibal film. With Guyana: Crime of the Century, Cardona wasn't trying to rip a movie, but instead choice to latch onto the coattails of one of the biggest news stories of the 70s – Jim Jones and the People's Temple.

Compared with Cardona's other films I've seen, Guyana: Crime of the Century comes off as a much more serious work. Cardona appears to be going for fewer of the exploitation elements he loaded his other films with and, instead, is going for something more true to life and realistic. Don't misunderstand, there are scenes of exploitation in Guyana: Crime of the Century, they are just not played to the max the way they are in something like Tintoera. Being based at least somewhat on an actual event, Cardona was handcuffed by the reality of what actually took place in the jungles of Guyana. As a result, this movie is not as "fun" as Cardona's other films. Much of the first 2/3 of the film is very slow with little more to enjoy than the wild, crazed dialogues of the good reverend. The last 1/3 does pick up the pace, culminating with a satisfactory finale that is very well done by Cardona's standards. It's a moving and fitting end to the film.

In addition to comparing Guyana: Crime of the Century with his other works, I can't help but compare Cardona's movie with the 1980 TV movie Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones. I haven't seen the TV movie in a decade or more, but I remember it being a better made film that probably sticks to the truth of what happened at Jonestown better than Cardona's movie. Also, the 1980 film stars Powers Boothe as Jim Jones. His portrayal of the crazed leader of the doomed cult is light-years ahead of Stuart Whitman's turn in the role. Boothe delivers an incredibly powerful (pun not intended) and believable performance.

Speaking of Stuart Whitman, Guyana: Crime of the Century is filled with over-the-hill, past-their-prime actors in most of the major roles. Whitman was the youngest at 53. Yvonne De Carlo was 57. Gene Barry was 60. John Ireland was 65. And Joseph Cotton was the oldest at 74. For Cotton, Guyana: Crime of the Century is about as far away from Citizen Kane as you can get.

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3 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Not as sleazy as its reputation would suggest, 7 August 2007
Author: lazarillo

This Mexican co-production which offers a slightly fictionalized account of the Jonestown Massacre, changing only the names to protect the innocent (and also apparently the guilty) was generally reviled when it came out for being exploitative, while the American TV movie that was also rushed into production (but beaten to the punch by this one) used the real names and even some of the audiotape of the actual massacre, was ironically regarded as a paragon of good taste. Actually, neither are very good, but this one is shorter and doesn't waste as much time getting to the good stuff.

It is nowhere near as tasteless and shocking as it's reputation suggests--the only questionable scene is where a white couple is caught making love "without permission" and are brought naked before the congregation (full-frontal nudity and all) and Jones (played by Stuart Whitman) orders the girl to have sex with a great big black guy while her boyfriend watches. This is either kind of racist or racist-baiting (I'm not sure), but the director cuts away before anything really happens and doesn't revel in the spectacle like a lot of "liberal" directors of the era would have. The movie certainly is incompetent--did I mention it was directed by legendary Mexican hackmeister Rene Cardona Jr.?--but sometimes an incompetent bad movie is a lot more fun than a competent bad one.

If you want to see a TRULY exploitative version of this, check out "Divine Emmanuele" where the Jim Jones character is played by Laura "Black Emanuelle" Gemser and all the gratuitous rape scenes and interracial softcore sex scenes are played to the hilt. So there you have it--you can choose between the faux respectability and "realism" of the TV movie, the unabashed trashiness of the Gemser movie, or this one which falls somewhere in between.

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5 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
"White Night" of Terror., 1 May 2006
6/10
Author: sol1218 from brooklyn NY

#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.

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6 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Another slice of horror exploitation from the makers of SURVIVE!, 18 August 2001
2/10
Author: virek213 from San Gabriel, Ca., USA

From the Mexican film crew that gave us the infamous 1976 exploitation flick SURVIVE! comes the equally disgusting GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED, loosely (and I do mean LOOSELY) based on the events leading up to the Rev. Jim Jones leading more than 900 of his cult followers to a cyanide-laced death in the Guyana rainforest. Only this time, however, the filmmakers managed to bribe a lot of big names to play real people whose names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty. Gene Barry, John Ireland, Stuart Whitman, Yvonne DeCarlo, and a whole host of others can hardly call this either one's shining hour.

But just as SURVIVE! necessitated the making of ALIVE, CULT OF THE DAMNED would be followed (inevitably, and much sooner) by the superb 2-part TV film GUYANA TRAGEDY: THE STORY OF JIM JONES. This film is simply nothing more than gruesome horror exploitation that even slasher film exploiters in the American market would have had a hard time stomaching.

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4 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
A Real Corker, 23 August 2002
6/10
Author: Flixer1957 (wtr4423@juno.com) from Columbia County, NY

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

**Possible Spoilers Ahead**

This flick opens with a disclaimer that "names have been changed to protect the innocent," then shifts to a scene where a reporter blows his brains all over a bathroom mirror. At that point, something told me this movie would be a real p***er. As the verbose "Reverend Jim Johnson", Stuart Whitman has more dialogue in the first ten minutes than in all his other movies combined. His attorneys are played by Joseph Cotten (who would hit rock bottom in HEAVEN'S GATE the next year) and John Ireland who looks mighty strange in a beard and horn-rimmed glasses. Gene Barry appears as congressman "Leo O'Brien," Yvonne DeCarlo is Johnson's liason with the real world and Robert Doqui and Jennifer Ashley are two of his disciples. Cardona regular Hugo Stiglitz is on hand as a reporter. Bradford Dillman is the resident doctor who mixes one mean Kool-Aid cocktail. This version leads us to believe that Reverend Jim was terminally ill and wanted to take about 900 people with him. Prior to that outrage, his followers punish a deserter by drugging him and leaving him on railroad tracks right before the next train roars through. Three boys steal food and are punished with snakes, water torture and shocks to the genitals. Two teenagers are caught doing the Featherbed Mambo; the cult leader hands the girl over to the biggest stud in "Johnsontown" and orders the boy to have sex with another man and all I can say is, thank God this discipline takes place offscreen. The original film runs 109 minutes that fly right by, if only because you can't believe what you're seeing. Universal cut it down to 90 minutes when they released it Stateside as GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED. One thing I'll say for the Guyana Tragedy: you didn't hear many jokes about it. That's because the punch lines were too long.

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1 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Pompous windbag guides mindless dolts to Guyana and offers them tasty fruit punch, 25 May 2003
Author: Dr. Gore (drgore@hotmail.com) from Los Angeles, California

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*

Reverend James Johnson leads his followers to Johnsontown. Not Jonestown. Johnsontown. They build a camp in the jungles of Guyana. It's supposed to be a paradise away from the corrupting influence of the United States. Of course it's all a lie. The cult members do hard labor and are rewarded with rice. This all leads to a visit from a congressman and a buffet line of poisoned fruit punch.

Of course this little exploitation movie is based on the real Jonestown massacre. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, (Whatever!). So you know going into this movie that you will see a mass suicide. This is the ghoulish highlight. We get to watch babies being force fed poison and other scenes of poisoned drinks being shoved down people's throats. I wondered why the cult members kept lining up for drinks when they could see their fellow Johnsontown residents howling in agony in front of them. Ah, cult members. How wacky.

Most of the movie is spent listening to the pompous Rev. Johnson preach to his mindless flock. He gathers them together several times to tell them why he's great and the rest of the world stinks. SNORE! You'll just have to bear through these scenes to make it to the slaughter scene. There are a few scenes of discipline and torture to keep things interesting on the way to the fruit punch exodus. Is the trip worth the destination? Hard to say. I've always wondered what a bunch of brain washed dolts killing themselves looked like. Now I know. Thanks, "Guyana, Crime of the Century"!

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2 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Based on a true story of the Jonestown massacre., 10 October 1999
Author: William (williamnorton316@hotmail.com) from Seattle, Washington

Universal released and re-edited this Mexican film starring an all-star cast! I saw both prints and it's intresting how Universal added a voice over of a survivor, and made the film more fast pace. I hate to give this film any credit, but some of it more accurate than the TV film GUYANA TRAGEDY. And Stuart Whitman as Jim Johnson (jones) gives a pretty good performance. The rest of the cast looks like they did this film for the money as they look very tried. This film was hated by most critic (especially Siskel & Ebert) and is very offensive at times. If you have to see it, I strongly recommend you see the short version for it more professional put together. But I doubt Universal will ever put this film on tape.

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2 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
This movie tells everything but the truth, 15 March 2005
1/10
Author: Stefan Kangas from Sweden

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.

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3 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the better true-crime stories ever made, 26 March 2000
9/10
Author: Casey-52 from DVD Drive-In

I keep getting this movie confused with "Guyana Tragedy", the TV movie based on the Jim Jones incident. But this is a fantastic film, truly bone-chilling and bizarre! I just saw it on TV (on FOX, of all places!) and could not believe how well-made it was. Having heard mostly negative reviews of the film, I am glad to say that they were all wrong. For the most part, "Cult of the Damned" is a lot more accurate than the TV movie and being a theatrical feature, can actually show more of the massacre than a TV movie's restricted budget and audience. Try to find this on TV sometime or even better, search for it on video! It's long out of print, but well worth the time to look around!

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5 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Illegal Pretenders to the Papal Chair, 30 July 2005
Author: Mahatma Fabrizi (mahatma_phanishwar@yahoo.co.in) from Sri Lanka

In 1978, A Mexican film crew (Mismovision) struck a deal with Mexico City Broadcasting (MCB): In the years that followed, they could use their characters in any way they saw fit. MCB producer Memo Vasqueze, who was responsible for bringing many great cult leader shows to TV throughout the 70s, decided to do a Jim Jones series, and wanted the story to remain as faithful to the Marvel comic as possible, but MCB's sponsor Bambino Machino wanted to sell more toys, so there was a major story rewrite, and they had to push a giant robot into the story! MCB's producers thought Bambino Machino was crazy! Nonetheless, this was to be the first time in a cult leader series in which a cult leader figure (as opposed to a regular pilot, such as in the Japanese METZENGINGER Z) operated a giant robot!

The MCB/Bambino Machino project entitled GUYANA: Crimen del siglo a Mexinization of Jim Jones himself (the project was going to be called GUYANA: Robusteza del Mal), but Bambino Machino got more control than Vasqueze, for whom this show was the last straw. When he left evil cult shows (and worked on soap operas at MCB), it was completely Bambino Machino's show from there on. The next Cult Hero Series, Siempre listo en las tinieblas (1980) and ¡Así es mi tierra! (1981) had MCB in the opening credits! Go figure!

Here we have Bambino Machino's GUYANA: Crimen del siglo, which, despite its shortcomings, should supposedly be a treat for fans of that type of thing! I will say that it was better than the short-lived American series starring Powers Booth (which wasn't TOO bad). Before the excellent new GUYANA film starring Stewart Whitman, this is definitely the least historically faithful GUYANA ever portrayed on film! The attitude was right, the poses and stunts were incredible! But the faithfulness ends with portrayal of Cult Leader Jimmy (Jim-Jam) Jones himself. . .

The STORY is what bugs me! The Mexinization is much more extreme than the aforementioned Marvel Comic from the same year, and here, Jim-Jam's regular foes are nowhere to be seen. Also, his origins have been changed completely! He's from outer space, he has a racing car (Messiah-Machine GP-12000) and rides a giant ship called the Marveller (hmmmm . . . Where DID they get that name . . . ), which transforms into the giant robot Assuptionizer! OK, now this is TOTALLY out of place for IL' Captain Koolaid, even more absurd than any of Ralph Bakshi's "drug-trip" Hobbit adventures (from the last two seasons of the classic animated series)! But that's not all! Bambino Machino ran out of money to do the FX prior to the post-production, and Assuptionizer was replaced by a goofy-looking bozo-clown named Senior Bungles, as it was rumored that some nasty fanatic stole the robot costume! So its appearance was limited to stock footage of the robot, with new footage of Senior Bungles' balloon animal antics spliced in!

But now, let'slook at a few the show's minuses: As, moreover, we are forced to endure more Guyana Cult Tragedy action! In fact, the show is VERY violent! incorporating in certain instances real footage of human brain surgery!

I'll be as brief on the plot as I can: In space, Professor Jehovah, leader of the Angelican Army (his cronies include right hand woman Oblate Sisters of the Assumption, a similar two Caucasian women, and dove-like henchmen) are in pursuit of the space craft Marveller, which comes to Earth and crashes on a mountain in Guyana, freeing an old hermit named Padre Sebastián, who was from the planet Spider (which the big Prof. plundered and destroyed long ago). After a race show, motorcycle stuntman Bert Powers (Ricardo Carrión) (who lives with his sister and little brother, and has a fashion model girlfriend, who's unaware that her boss is actually an Oblate Sisters of the Assumption in disguise! Wow, and you thought the Branch Davidians of the infamous Waco Massacre were out there!) is fatally wounded by Oblate Sisters of the Assumption and the dove-henchmen, who attempt to remove his brain but are thwarted by Padre Sebastián, the old hermit, who injects "grape koolaid" into Bert's jugular artery before turning back into a starfish!

He also receives a metallic bracelet, which stores his cult leader suit (PLUS!!!), shoots holy fire, and is also a communicator for the Messiah-Machine GP-12000 and Marveller, which he can ride and transform into Assuptionizer, which kills 917 "true believers", as we all know, on that ill-fated day (it hurls its punch bowls at it's prey, as opposed to to merely lacing it with stychnide and leaving it there by the wayside for the followers to imbibe at their leisure)!

**SPOILERS** I will say that, ultimately, though incredibly rushed (especially after its slow first half), has its fair share of sick sick scenes, in particular, those depicting the heaps of stagnant dead bodies rotting in the sun, and accompanied by the buzzing of flies on the soundtrack!

Anyhow, after the Assuptionizer kills the congregation off, Jim Jones comes face to face with Professor Jehovah, who, after a little scuffle with our cult leader, grows to giant size, pounds his chest like King Kong, and exerts "The Angelican Army is immortal!!!" Jim Jones does the usual Marveller/Assuptionizer thing and kills the evil Professor the same way he killed everyone else, but this time, with a bit of fire & brimstone thrown in between for dramatic effect (supposedly taken from real life transcripts of real-life sermons but echoing here via the employment of some audio trickery and thus difficult to understand)

My final take: Bambino Machino's GUYANA: Century of the Crime a fun roller-coaster ride with tons of unnecessary (but not unwelcome) sermonizing, and a must-see for Jesus freaks. I say, don't let the minuses get to you, and just sit back and enjoy the plusses!

Not Recommended.

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