This is one of those episodes of "The American Experience" that I was very hesitant to watch. While I love the series and really, really respect how well done the show is, the Jonestown topic is just dreadful--and this show paints a VERY vivid picture of the tragedy--and I DON'T RECOMMEND IT FOR SENSITIVE VIEWERS OR KIDS. After all, the mass suicide/murder of his followers was recorded---and you hear Jones talking as folks scream--including lots of women and children. You are forewarned.
I remember the Jonestown tragedy reasonably well--so the savagery of the events didn't come as any surprise to me--and this is probably true of anyone my age or older. But, for the rest of the readers, he and over 900 of his followers killed themselves or were killed back in 1978. Why? Because Jones was an insane and evil cult leader ordered it! Hard as it is to understand, this documentary attempts to put it all in context and at least explain what sort of man he was and point out all the MANY danger signs before this awful event. After all, Jones didn't go from being a nice pastor of a church to suddenly losing his mind and ordering this awful mess. Some of the weird cult behaviors seen BEFORE the group moved from San Francisco to Guyana included fake mass suicides (as practice or to determine the followers' loyalty), fake healings, torture/public beatings for those who offended Jones, weird promiscuous sex acts, Jones tossing the Bible across the room and declaring he was THE authority and many other CLEAR signs that this was no ordinary church and no ordinary leader!! The bottom line is that although the show is VERY creepy and sad, it also is very compelling and well made. You certainly WON'T be bored by this show, that's for sure. And, what makes it work so well is that the folks who made the documentary were able to interview lots of folks who managed to survive--such as those who were among the five who escaped into the jungle and those who dropped out of the cult before the end. Well worth seeing--as is the TV movie that dramatized this--"Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones" (starring Powers Boothe).
By the way, I did some reading and found that, if anything, the documentary downplayed Jones and his freaky doctrinal views. Well before the Jonestown tragedy, he claimed that he was the reincarnation of Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Lenin and a lot of other folks as well as said he was an atheist (odd for a preacher to say this--especially if he's reincarnated Jesus).
I remember the Jonestown tragedy reasonably well--so the savagery of the events didn't come as any surprise to me--and this is probably true of anyone my age or older. But, for the rest of the readers, he and over 900 of his followers killed themselves or were killed back in 1978. Why? Because Jones was an insane and evil cult leader ordered it! Hard as it is to understand, this documentary attempts to put it all in context and at least explain what sort of man he was and point out all the MANY danger signs before this awful event. After all, Jones didn't go from being a nice pastor of a church to suddenly losing his mind and ordering this awful mess. Some of the weird cult behaviors seen BEFORE the group moved from San Francisco to Guyana included fake mass suicides (as practice or to determine the followers' loyalty), fake healings, torture/public beatings for those who offended Jones, weird promiscuous sex acts, Jones tossing the Bible across the room and declaring he was THE authority and many other CLEAR signs that this was no ordinary church and no ordinary leader!! The bottom line is that although the show is VERY creepy and sad, it also is very compelling and well made. You certainly WON'T be bored by this show, that's for sure. And, what makes it work so well is that the folks who made the documentary were able to interview lots of folks who managed to survive--such as those who were among the five who escaped into the jungle and those who dropped out of the cult before the end. Well worth seeing--as is the TV movie that dramatized this--"Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones" (starring Powers Boothe).
By the way, I did some reading and found that, if anything, the documentary downplayed Jones and his freaky doctrinal views. Well before the Jonestown tragedy, he claimed that he was the reincarnation of Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Lenin and a lot of other folks as well as said he was an atheist (odd for a preacher to say this--especially if he's reincarnated Jesus).
