LET'S START A CULT - Mark Reviews Movies

Let's Start a Cult, Dark Sky Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 24, 2024

The key to the humor of Let's Start a Cult is that the filmmakers don't find the reality of a suicide cult funny, but they do see the absurdity of the idea. It's sad, really, that people would believe to have so little in life that the promise of death, surrounded by others like them, and some comfort beyond is more alluring. That's the basic psychology, it seems, of such a group, and even if co-writer/director Ben Kitnick's film is a silly comedy about the subject, it does understand and find some twisted humor in that foundation.

The extended prologue here sets the tone. We meet the members of a cult, led by William (Wes Haney), in video interviews that will be sent to the local press after the group has accomplished their mission. They're all excited and comforted by the notion that, according to their leader, a glorious afterlife awaits them, but one guy among the group seems more excited—and in distinct ways—than the others.

He's Chip (Stavros Halkias), and his thoughts are odd, which is a description that would seem, well, odd in this context. It's true, though, because Chip mostly imagines all of the sex he'll be having in the cult's vision of heaven, even though none of William's teachings or practices seem to involve that in the slightest. Chip's an outsider among a group of outsiders, and if the appeal of a cult is partly in keeping loneliness at bay with other lonely people, how lonely must Chip be to be the odd man out in even this group?

This gradually leads to arguably the film's best joke, which also happens to be the setup for the rest of the plot. Chip frustrates and annoys his fellow cult members—refusing to participate in a practice run of drinking poison for hygienic reasons and eating all but a sliver of the cake that was meant to be desert for the group's last meal—to the point that they want nothing to do with him. What should be Chip's final days alive are spent in the "punishment barn," where he has to deal with raccoons that steal his food, and his role in the preparation of their grand ascension is to clean toilets, take out the trash, and try not to be too much of a nuisance.

That, apparently, is impossible, so William gives Chip one final task to perform before the group's ritual suicide. He's to mail the video tape, already in a stamped and addressed envelope, at a local convenience store, and somehow, Chip messes up that, too. When he returns to the cult's farm, he discovers that everyone is already dead. They really, really wanted nothing to do with the guy.

The rest of the story is funny in a similar way. It's twisted but never cruel and absurd but never mocking. As strange as it may sound, the screenplay—written by Kitnick, Haney, and Halkias—has a degree of compassion for its characters that catches us off guard. They may be weird and sometimes off-putting, but beneath the constant jokes and wacky situations, there's a real comprehension for how sad, desperate, and lonely these characters are. The joke, in other words, is never on them.

The plot proper picks up three months after the cult left Chip behind in the most extreme way possible. He's stuck with a family that doesn't respect or even seem to like him (He's fired from the family gravel business because he hasn't made a single sale during his tenure). Then, the news breaks that the bodies of the cult members were found, but based on a photo of the group, the police have determined that William wasn't among the dead (Nobody knows about Chip, because the group framed him out of the photo, of course).

That sends Chip on a hunt for his former spiritual leader, and he finds William currently working as a clown. Chip's angry, naturally, but William convinces the guy that he miraculously returned from the dead for the sole purpose of helping him. Chip decides it's time to start a new cult.

They travel, then, recruiting members and looking for a new place to make their headquarters. Those enlisted include Tyler (Eric Rahill), who was rejected by the Army and has nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, and Diane (Katy Fullan), whom Chip meets at a hotel breakfast buffet after she has harassed a local judge for taking away custody of her son. A third recruit is Jim (Daniel Simonsen), a hitchhiker with plenty of conspiracy theories and an air about him that Wiliam suspects to be homicidal.

It becomes apparent pretty quickly, by the way, that William is a skilled manipulator, preying upon people as sad and hopeless as he turns out to be. If the film does have one exception to its sympathetic perspective on its cast of outcasts, it's rightly him. The payoff to that viewpoint is sudden and cements the filmmakers' view of the other characters.

The film loses some steam, which is to be expected when it comes out of the gate with such comedic verve, but it remains funny and surprisingly insightful, simply because it's more concerned with the nature of these characters than in forcing them into a series of situational gags. Let's Start a Cult is ridiculous and over-the-top at times, but there's a level of understanding for its despairing characters that keeps it grounded.

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